“Ancient Mystery: Luxurious Purple and Gold Fabric Discovered in 1,600-Year-Old French Necropolis”
François Gauchet/InrapAn illustration of what Burial 47 may have looked like 1,600 years ago.
Experts set out to carefully extract the cloth from the soil it was encased in — and now, nearly five years later, they’ve finally revealed their work to the public.
Exposing The Ancient Garment After 1,600 Years
The first step in extracting the fabric was safely removing it from the sarcophagus. There were several inches of dirt in the box, so archaeologists had to take the cloth out in four separate clods of soil. Then, before they could do anything else, the researchers had to make sure the fabric didn’t disintegrate further.
Lucie Marquat/InrapThe purple fabric was woven with gold threads.
Archaeologists refrigerated the clods to ensure the textile didn’t grow mold. They then let the clods dry in a refrigerator for a year so they could better remove the dirt from the cloth.
It took experts another year to painstakingly extract the fragments of fabric with tweezers from the first clod alone. However, the extensive process proved to be worth it.
An examination of the fabric once it had been cleaned revealed that it may have once featured a plant or floral design. It was likely used to wrap the body inside the sarcophagus where it was found.
Fabienne Médard and F.Gauchet/InrapThe fabric contains faint outlines of a possible pattern.
Inrap noted that the cloth and the other artifacts found at the necropolis “testify to the prosperity of Autun in late Antiquity, and the important status of the deceased from Saint-Pierre-l’Estrier.”
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