The red-blue conundrum: an archaeo-linguistic approach to red dyes and blue flowers in prehistory
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The red-blue conundrum : an archaeo-linguistic approach to red dyes and blue flowers in prehistory. / Nørtoft, Mikkel Johansen.
In: Archaeological Textiles Review, No. 59, 12.2017, p. 44-66.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The red-blue conundrum
T2 - an archaeo-linguistic approach to red dyes and blue flowers in prehistory
AU - Nørtoft, Mikkel Johansen
PY - 2017/12
Y1 - 2017/12
N2 - Plants from the Rubiaceae family (Rubia, Galium, and Asperula) are often grouped together as madder because they havebeen used for dyeing red since at least the Bronze Age. The English plant name madder can be traced through the Germaniclanguage all the way back to Proto-Indo-European (PIE), as spoken by pastoralists on the Pontic-Caspian steppes c.4500 to 2500 BC. The word can be reconstructed as PIE *modʰ-r- by the comparative linguistic method. However, there is adifficulty with this. The other Indo-European language branches indicate an original meaning of ‘blue’ for this word, whichis hard to reconcile with the appearance and use of Rubiaceae. In the search for the missing link between madder-red andthe original PIE meaning of ”blue”, this paper widens the scope of dyeplants to others with pigmented roots. It suggeststhat the missing link could be a blue-flowered plant species from the Boraginaceae family which has red-pigmented roots,perhaps originally used for cosmetics.
AB - Plants from the Rubiaceae family (Rubia, Galium, and Asperula) are often grouped together as madder because they havebeen used for dyeing red since at least the Bronze Age. The English plant name madder can be traced through the Germaniclanguage all the way back to Proto-Indo-European (PIE), as spoken by pastoralists on the Pontic-Caspian steppes c.4500 to 2500 BC. The word can be reconstructed as PIE *modʰ-r- by the comparative linguistic method. However, there is adifficulty with this. The other Indo-European language branches indicate an original meaning of ‘blue’ for this word, whichis hard to reconcile with the appearance and use of Rubiaceae. In the search for the missing link between madder-red andthe original PIE meaning of ”blue”, this paper widens the scope of dyeplants to others with pigmented roots. It suggeststhat the missing link could be a blue-flowered plant species from the Boraginaceae family which has red-pigmented roots,perhaps originally used for cosmetics.
KW - Faculty of Humanities
M3 - Journal article
SP - 44
EP - 66
JO - Archaeological Textiles Review
JF - Archaeological Textiles Review
SN - 2245-7135
IS - 59
ER -
ID: 192063359