6,000-year-old fabric reveals Peruvians were dyeing with indigo before Egyptians | Hacker News Reader

6,000-year-old fabric reveals Peruvians were dyeing with indigo before Egyptians

latimes.com

94 pointsThevet12 comments

> It turns out it is not easy to definitely detect ancient indigo. Indigo molecules break down over time and can get washed out of fabrics. It takes extremely sensitive equipment to detect it.

Tell me about it! Speaking as someone who has spent the better part of a decade wearing, caring, freezing, airing, soaking and meticulously washing indigo dyed raw denim jeans, I can only empathize with the efforts this must've taken on 6,000-year-old fabrics :)

Thanks for sharing - Peruvians definitely just earned a point in my book for pioneering this fine, still-fashionable art.

Makes no difference to textbook writers in the west who want to claim Egyptians were the first to do everything.

I was reading an article earlier this week from university of chicago claiming egyptians were the world's first urban planners [1] as if Indus valley didn't have grids, sanitation systems.

1.https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2016/06/17/book-chronicles...

It's not that everyone 'wants' to claim the Egyptians did it first, it's that their history is the best documented of all ancient civilisations. We can put actual dates to most events pertaining to even the Old Kingdom period of Egypt, whereas there's a lot more guesswork when it comes to the Indus Valley, Peru, India, and even Mesopotamia and China.

There's a dig going on in Jianchuan, Yunnan, China right now - http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-07/22/content_686517... / http://www.kaogu.cn/en/backup_new/new/2013/1026/42529.html / http://www.kaogu.cn/en/Special_Events/Archaeology_Forum_2008... / http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTotal-KAGU200908003.htm - that is apparently the first place they've found with stilted houses (now found right across the tropics of Southeast Asia, first documented in Han Dynasty tomb carvings of the neighboring Sichuan region), rivalled only by a site in Switzerland in terms of scale at this vintage.

The location is in a natural depression above the first major bend in the upper Yangtze river, an ancient corridor for trade and ideas between central China, Tibet and South Asia. It was no doubt an artery through which the first knowledge of rice cultivation spread, given that there are still debates about where it began but they are essentially between or in proximity to river valleys that converge at this point (Yangtze, Brahmaputra, Red River, Salween, Mekong). Ancient history is truly fascinating!

Also I am translating a 1000 year old text from the region, 2 days ago it was talking about dyeing silk thread indigo/vermillion: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Manshu/Chapter_7#...

Also, this article mentions Indigo can be traced back to India [1]. In fact the word itself means "from India". Another important invention credit wrongly is Arabic numerals.

[1] http://www.npr.org/2011/11/07/142094103/indigo-the-indelible...

I can see the argument though; the Egyptians had very different cities from the rest of their contemporaries, much more spread out and, well... planned. "First" though, is clearly hyperbole.

Isn't it usually the Greeks who are claimed to have come up with something, which is then passed down in a long, unbroken chain of Western Civilization to the present day?

https://twitter.com/orientalinst/status/745646360288952321 Once again, the Egyptians did it first - not the Greeks. New research at the OI: the grid system and urban planning.

> unbroken chain of Western Civilization

Usually the chain includes the Islamic Middle East ...

> Usually the chain includes the Islamic Middle East ...

Until the Islamic world turned its back on Neoplaton thought under the guidance of theologian Al-Ghazali in the 11th century.

To be fair they say "some of the world’s first urban planners", although I do agree with you.

Ah, I was mostly referring to their official twitter account

https://twitter.com/orientalinst/status/745646360288952321

Once again, the Egyptians did it first - not the Greeks. New research at the OI: the grid system and urban planning.

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