III.B_The Revival of Colored Cotton_James M. Vreeland Jr_Scientific American-1999

THE REVIVAL OF COLORED COTTON James M. Vreeland, Jr. Scientific American Apr99, Vol. 280 Issue 4, p112 One afternoon in 1971 I was struggling to work in the National Museum of Anthropology in Lima, Peru , in a small conservation laboratory... More

THE REVIVAL OF COLORED COTTON James M. Vreeland, Jr. Scientific American Apr99, Vol. 280 Issue 4, p112 One afternoon in 1971 I was struggling to work in the National Museum of Anthropology in Lima, Peru , in a small conservation laboratory that I shared with a resident population of fleas, rats, a snake and a monkey. I was examining pre-Colombian textiles through a stereoscopic microscope, thinking about how best to preserve them. A graduate student in archaeology, I had come to Peru several years earlier to participate in an excavation at the Chan Chan site in the northern Andes and had just returned with a modest grant from the Organization of American States to continue my studies. Little did I know that what I would see through the microscope that day would set me off on another trail altogether. Inside the cotton fibers walls I noticed some intriguing dark masses that imparted color to the fabric. Because the distinct brown spots did n Less