TechxTiles: Developing a Protocol on Identifying and Characterizing Colour in Philippine Archaeological Textiles

Patricia Panganiban1*, Analyn Salvador-Amores2, and Armand Mijares1

Textiles and their production can provide invaluable insights into cultural practices and values, past technologies, available resources, and trade networks. While the choice of colour can be determined by accessibility to certain plants or animals to produce natural dyes, it can also convey wider symbolic meanings and beliefs of a community. However, the organic nature of textiles, especially in a tropical environment, makes them more prone to degradation over time. Colour can fade or even fully disappear. The technique of dyeing is complex, consisting not only of the dye but other additional dyeing aids such as mordants in order to chemically bind the colour to the fibres of the fabric. When colour fades over time, it decomposes into several byproducts. It is with this residual information that we aim to identify and characterize the use of colour in Philippine archaeological textiles. To develop a protocol for this, we investigated several non-invasive analytical methods such as portable X-Ray Fluorescence Analysis (pXRF) and Attenuated Total Reflectance – Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) on ethnographic textiles from Museo Kordilyera, Corditex, and the Mercedes Zobel Collection. Results are compiled into a reference database on colour and analytical techniques as a comparative tool in reconstructing faded colour.