抄録
In spite of long time storage over 1300 years, some of very old dyed textiles still seem to maintain beautiful color. Among others, red colored silk fabrics known as Horyujigire, which are believed to be the product of China in the 7th century, and the red string attached to a famous armor of the 12th century, both maintaining their clear red color, were examined with regard to the dyestuff and color as well.
To identify the dyestuff used on these textiles, it is considered to be necessary to extract the dyestuffs directly from the dyed fabrics, not from plant tissue. In view of this we prepared silk cloths dyed with Rubeaceae roots, sapan wood, safflower, Rhizophoraceae wood and Texaceae wood.
By paperchromatographic analyses we have found that the above two old fabrics would contain madder or chay root dyes. This conclusion seems to be in agreement with the result of the investigation by means of organic chemistry.
Color fastness tests against the sunlight and washing on those cloths also showed that madder was more resistant than the others.
