Cochineal

INSECT DYES

We can summarize all the insect dyes which have been used for rugs into three main groups. These  insects are biologically different from each other:

1. Cochineal dye which is isolated from:

a) Porphyrophora hameli - This local type of cochineal has been used in Azerbaijan from ancient times up to the 20th century.

b) Margarodes polonicus and Porphyrophora polonica. - This is called Polish Cochineal. Of the various insect dyes known to readers of oriental decorative art literature, the Polish Cochineal coccid dye insect and its dye are least familiar. However, this coccid dye producer was for many centuries a dominant factor in the textile dye trade and commercial history-of eastern Europe and the Near East. While there is little specific evidence that Polish Cochineal dye was used in any category of Oriental rug, its presence in the market at the time certain rug types were made would be a complicating factor in drawing conclusions about insect dye use.

c) Dactylopius coccus or Coccus Cacti- The cochineal dye which is originated in Spanish America or in other Spanish territories, from a cactus-feeding insect, and was used in certain rugs and textiles of the Caucasus, Persia, and Turkey.

2. Kermes - Kermes (originally kırmız, qırmız ), originates from the word "kirmizi", which means "red" in all Turkic languages. Kermes dye extracted from the dried bodies of the females of a scale insect in the genus Kermes, primarily Kermes ilicis (formerly Coccus ilicis) or Kermes vermilio, distantly related to the cochineal insect, and found on species of oak (esp. Kermes oak) in Mediterranean countries, also in certain parts of Iran.

3. Lac dye -The lac dye originated in Northern India, from an insect (Kerria Lacca), producing both dye and shellac, and was used in rugs and textiles in India and in areas along trade routes where lac was available.
 

a) Historical References
The earliest historical reference to this dye or color is dated to 714 B.C., when Sargon II of Assyria attacked the kingdom of Urartu* and acquired as part of the booty "scarlet textiles of Ararat and Kurkhi."

A number of references in the Middle Ages to a red of Azerbaijan document a region-specific dyestuff, particularly in the writings of Muslim geographers of the 9th through 14th centuries.

Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Bīrūnī  (973-1048 A.D.) and Hamzah Al-Isfahani (d. 961) mentions about the production of insect dye in Azerbaijan.

Ahmad Ibn Yahya al-Baladuri (Balazuri) (d. ca. 892) described Ardizat, to the east of Agridag (Ararat), as Karya-al-Kirmiz, the "town of kirmiz."

According to the 10th century Muslim Arab writer, geographer, and chronicler Mohammed Abul-Kassem ibn Hawqal (born in Nisibis; travelled 943-969 CE), the city of Dabil (Dwn, Dvin, Duvin, Touin) stood north of Ardasat (Ardisat) and was the place where they made "the beautiful color called kermez...(of) a certain worm."

The 14th century famous Azerbaijan geographer and historian Hamdullah Gazvini (1340), mentions the production of girmiz/kirmiz in the plains to the south of Marand, in S. Azerbaijan.

Urartu*- After the fall of the Hittite empire, at the beginning of the first millennium B.C., kingdom of Urartu was formed in eastern Anatolia, which was to survive for 300 years. Urartu, who were closely related to the Hurrians and Hittites in origin.

Sargon II (right), king of Assyria (r. 722 - 705 BC), with the crowned prince, Sennacherib(left)

Abū Rayhān Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Bīrūnī (September 15, 973 in Kath, Khwarezm – December 13, 1048 in Ghazni) was a Muslim polymath of the 11th century, whose experiments and discoveries were as significant and diverse as those of Leonardo da Vinci or Galileo, five hundred years before the them and Renaissance.

b) Cochineal of Azerbaijan - Gırmız (Porphyrophora hamelii): Entomology, Geography, and Biochemistry
Cochineal Red of Azerbaijan rugs was invariably prepared from the coccid species, Porphyrophora hamelii Brandt. Taxonomically, P. hamelii, is a member of the Margarodidae, a family of the super family called Coccoidea (or scale insects). The margarodes spend much of their life burrowing in the ground and feeding on the roots of certain host plants.

All categories of the Coccoidea have quite specific host- parasite relationships. whereby the coccid insect owes its survival and geographic distribution to specific plants.
Cochineal of Azerbaijan - Gırmız insect, P. hamelii, feeds on the roots and lower stems of a number of grasses placed within Aeluropus littoralis. The most often identified host grass is Aeluropus laevis (equivalent to Dactylis littoralis or Poa pungens). This plant is found in the saline marshes along the River Araz, extending to the marshes near Lake Urumia, South Azerbaijan. The flat valley floors around Agridag in Eastern Anatolia is also the common site for the grasses.

c) The life cycle and related biological aspects of the Cochineal of Azerbaijan - Gırmız

As with all these dye insects, it is the female which produces the colorant. The insects are collected for dye harvesting during the non- terrestrial mating phase in the early fall. Insect density on the ground and the host grass during this period can be very high. An English translation of the writing of German geographer Friedrich Parrott, ca. 1829, describes "...a number of cochineal insects, some of which were creeping about on the dry sand and short grass, but the greater part were collected...in large nests, round the roots of a short, hard species of grass - the dactylis littoralis...." Parrott was in Caucasia when he made these observations.

In September and October, the cochineal of Azerbaijan emerges from the soil very early in the morning and mates. Fertilized females reenter the soil and lay eggs. In the following April and early May, larvae emerge from the eggs and leave the soil briefly to feed on the new grass. They return to the soil and attach themselves to the roots of the host grass for the balance of the feeding cycle. The dye-bearing female cochineal adult insects are gathered at the time of mating in the autumn.

d) Chemistry & Biochemistry of Gırmız Dyestuff

Methods for the isolation and purification of the dye from the cochienal coccid have still not been fully duplicated from the centuries-old fragments of archival data. We do know a fair amount about the insect's biochemistry, however. In terms of economics and trade, we know that there was a single annual harvest of the adult female in the autumn and that the dye amounts to up to 5% of the insect's live weight. Also, isolation of the dye is complicated by interferences from a rather high fat content, up to about 30% by weight.

The range of colors in the dye extraction media was a simple function of the chemical conditions of the dye harvesting process, while the appearance of the dried cochineal insects themselves could range considerably. In Babenko's article, reprinted here, the director of the laboratory investigating the cochineal of Azerbaijan -girmiz noted that the dried insects were not red but were a variety of other colors. This remark is of marginal relevance to the technology of the dye. Any dye/chemical technologist would confirm that the biochemical form of a dye or pigment in the insect as well as the visual appearance of the insect itself need not accord to the eye with the chemically isolated, pure dyestuff. Linguistically, the various oriental languages which use the root term for worm in various words for red could also intend for this term to connote "red (of the) worm."

What is the chief chemical principle of the dyestuff in the cochineal of Azerbaijan? The answer to this question was not to be found in the open scientific literature, although the related research results of Dr. H. Jonathon Banks for the closely related Polish Cochineal dye product showed that carminic acid was virtually the entire active color principle. Only traces of other colored substances were found.

Identification of carminic acid as the color principle in the cochineal of Azerbaijan, the same as that in the American (Spanish) cactus cochineal and the related Polish Cochineal, may help explain why the Azerbaijan species ceased being a dominant trade material in western Asia. This is discussed further in the report.

e) Use of cochineal in Decorative Arts of Azerbaijan

We would expect that Caucasian rugs of Azerbaijan made as recently as the 18th century and perhaps later would have used cochineal red from Porphyrophora hamelii. When one carefully reads the comments of F. R. Martin and later writers concerning the vivid scarlet red in that group of rugs called the Dragon carpets, especially the earlier examples produced in the 17th and early 18th centuries in Azerbaijan, there is reason to expect that cochineal of Azerbaijan red was used in the earliest carpets of this group and some of their stylistic ancestors.

There is little hard evidence to indicate that use of the cochineal of Azerbaijan as dyestuff in local rug production ended with any phase-out of this red dye as an exportable trade item. There is a general paucity of evidence at the remote village or town level to show either ending or continuation of Cochineal of Azerbaijan - gırmız use. However, in the September, 1987, issue of the Wright Research Report, Wright furnishes information indicating continued use of the cochineal into the early 20th century. In 1925, A. S. Piralov, author of a 1913 study on rugs, wrote a report on rugmaking in Trans-Caucasus. In the report, he cites observations and statistics of M.G. Reliev to show:

"...cochineal is found in the barren steppes of Ganja province (of Azerbaijan) and in the swamps and salt marshes of the Autonomous Republic of Nakhichevan (part of Azerbaijan) in the Araz valley, where the rural population in peacetime (pre-World War I) collected up to 500 puds (9 tons) a year." In the Wright report, either Piralov or Reliev does confuse what is obviously the cochineal of Azerbaijan with the American (Spanish) cactus coccid, since it is noted that "...Coccus cacti (kyrmyz to the natives) is far superior to madder...cochineal is an extremely precious dye and beyond compare." Note also how the persistence of the term "kyrmyz, qyrmyz" in the native area of the cochineal of Azerbaijan would induce and sustain confusion between the local coccid and the oak kermes coccid insects.

Margarodes Polonicus (Polish Cochineal) and Scleranthus perennis (plant)

Of the various insect dyes known to readers of oriental decorative art literature, the Polish Cochineal coccid dye insect and its dye are least familiar. However, this coccid dye producer was for many centuries a dominant factor in the textile dye trade and commercial history-of eastern Europe and the Near East. While there is little specific evidence that Polish Cochineal dye was used in any category of Oriental rug, its presence in the market at the time certain rug types were made would be a complicating factor in drawing conclusions about insect dye use.

Historical Record

Prior to the development of aniline, alizarin and other synthetic dyes, the insect was of great economic importance, although this was declining after the introduction of Mexican cochineal to Europe in the 16th century.

According to Donkin, R.A., the research work of Pfister establishes the earliest documentation for Polish Cochineal dye in textiles, those found in Egypt and Syria, dating to Hellenistic-Roman times. Pfister's work in the 1930's involved tests for distinguishing kermes, madder, and cochineal in textiles of  Sassanid and Chinese origin. To this writer, however, either Kirmiz or Polish Cochineal sources were possible.

Ancient Slavs developed a method of obtaining red dye from the larvae of the Polish cochineal.

The Capitularies of Charlemagne, according to Donkin, R.A., have the earliest mention of Polish Cochineal (vermiculo) in the West (812 A.D.). There are a number of citations for the 12th century and later regarding the presence and harvesting of Polish Cochineal in eastern and central Europe, and these are summarized by Donkin, R.A. and Brunello, F..A number of the leading medical botanists and herbalists of the 16th and 17th centuries described the Polish Cochineal insect.

The earliest known scientific study of the Polish cochineal is found in the Herbarz Polski (Polish Herbal) by Marcin of Urzędów (1595), where it was described as "small red seeds" that grow under plant roots, becoming "ripe" in April and from which a little "bug" emerges in June. The first scientific comments by non-Polish authors were written by Segerius (1670) and von Bernitz (1672). In 1731, a Dutch biologist living in Gdańsk, Johann Philipp Breyne, wrote Historia naturalis Cocci Radicum Tinctorii quod polonicum vulgo audit (translated into English during the same century), the first major treatise on the insect, including the results of his research on its physiology and life cycle.In 1934, Polish biologist Antoni Jakubski wrote Czerwiec polski (Polish cochineal), a monograph taking into account both the insect's biology and historical role.

From about 1800 on, Polish Cochineal was mainly employed in eastern Europe, specifically in Poland and the Ukraine, and via trade routes in central and western Asia. A number of travelers in their chronicles of the 19th century refer to the "cochineal" produced in Russia and brought to Kashgar, Kabul, and Herat via Bukhara. This type of cochineal may have relevance to the available data we have regarding the use of two types of "cochineal" in Turkoman tribal rugs and trappings.

Entomology, Geographical Distribution and Dye production of  Polish Cochineal (Margarodes Polonicus) The Polish Cochineal, like Kirmiz insect of Azerbaijan, belongs to the Margarodidae family of the Coccoidea. It is a soil dweller and root feeder, and breeds and feeds exclusively on the roots of the host plant, Scleranthus perennis (Perennial knawel). This is a low-lying plant distributed narrowly in Poland, the Ukraine, and Lithuania. It grows on sandy, dry, acidic soils. It can grow up to 15 cm high and has white flowers of 2-5 mm. Polish Cochineal has also been known to feed on plants of 20 other genera, including mouse-ear hawkweed (Hieracium pilosella), bladder campion (Silene inflata), velvet bent (Agrostis canina), Caragana, smooth rupturewort (Herniaria glabra), strawberry (Fragaria) and cinquefoil (Potentilla). The insect was once commonly found throughout the Palearctic and was recognised across Eurasia, from France and England to China, but it was mainly in Central Europe where it was common enough to make its industrial use economically viable. (It is not clear whether the areas except than Eastern Europe produced the dye coccid in commercial quantities) Excessive economic exploitation, as well as the shrinking and degradation of its habitat, have made the Polish cochineal a rare species. In 1994, it was included in the Ukrainian Red Book of endangered species. In Poland, where it was still common in the 1960s, there is now insufficient data to determine its conservation status and no protective measures are in place.   Scleranthus perennis (Perennial knawel)

The insects were harvested shortly before the female larvae reached maturity, i.e. in late June, usually around Saint John the Baptist's day (June 24), hence the dye's folk name, Saint John's blood. The harvesting process involved uprooting the host plant and picking the female larvae, averaging approximately 10 insects from each plant. In Poland, including present-day Ukraine, and elsewhere in Europe, plantations were operated in order to deal with the high toll on the host plants. The larvae were killed with boiling water or vinegar and then dried in the sun or in an oven, ground, and dissolved in sourdough or in light rye beer called kvass, in order to remove fat. The extract could then be used for dyeing silk, wool, cotton or linen. The dyeing process requires roughly 3-4 oz of dye per pound (180 to 250 g per kilogram) of silk, and one pound of dye to color almost 20 pounds (50 g per kilogram) of wool.

Biochemistry of the Polish Cochineal Similar to other red dyes obtained from scale insects such as kirmiz red of Azerbaijan and American (Spanish) Cochineal dye, the red coloring is derived from carminic acid with traces of kermesic acid. The Polish cochineal extract's natural carminic acid content is approximately 20%.

As of 2005, Peru produced 200 tonnes of cochineal dye per year and the Canary Islands produced 20 tonnes per year. Chile and Mexico have also recently begun to export cochineal. France is believed to be the world's largest importer of cochineal; Japan and Italy also import the insect. Much of these imports are processed and reexported to other developed economies

of dyeing wool with cochineal As it is indicated above it takes approximately a quarter of a million Coccus cacti insects immersed in boiling water, removed, cooled, dried and powdered to make one kilo of dye. One kilo of cochineal is added to warm water until it has the consistency of milk. Then 280 g (10 oz) tartaric acid and a heaped cup of dye salts, are stirred in and the mixture left for twelve hours, with occasional stirring, during which time it expands and thickens. The mixture is then added to 35 litres gallons) of warm water, all lumps are removed, and it is heated and simmered for fifteen minutes. Wool that has been previously mordanted with tin should then be added and simmered for thirty to thirty-five minutes, cooled and rinsed until the water runs clear, and hung in a shady place until dry. This process yields a bright red colour which is fast. The dyebath may be re-used until the colour has disappeared.
2) THE OAK KERMES INSECT (KERMOCOCCUS VERMILIS PLANCHON) - KIRMIZ BÖCEĞI (TURKISH)     Kermes oak tree (Quercus coccifera)   Kermococcus vermilis Planchon insect (formerly Coccus ilicis and Kermes ilicis L. or Kermes vermilio)         a) Historical References The dye from the true oak kermes insect, kermococcus vermilis, has had a long and widespread history in Asia and Europe. All evidence indicates that its use was confined to expensive textiles and apparel. In terms of the historical record, kermes dye use may even predate written history, inasmuch as kermes-dyed remains have been identified at a prehistoric archaeological site in Provence, France. In ancient times, these insects were thought to be of a vegetable nature, and were used in medicine. Evergreen oaks which might have included the kermes host oak species were known to the Hebrews. The Phoenicians apparently had access to kermes in Palestine and Cilicia (celebrated for its oaks), and F.S. Bodenheimer cites the reference by a Phoenician merchant to "the rouge extracted from worms" and carried into northern Iraq in the 2nd millenium B.C. as the earliest written reference to kermes dye. Tiglath-pileser I (ca. 1100 B.C.) introduced oak trees to Assyria, presumably as plant host for kermes insects. Greco-Roman accounts of the kermes insect and its dye are rather garbled in terms of clearly characterizing this specific coccid. One reference which is clear, however, is that of the geographer Pausanius, second century A.D.: "This shrub (the kermes oak) the Ionians, as well as the rest of the Greeks, call kokkos there breeds in the fruit of the kokkos a small creature...and the blood of the creature serves as a dye for wool". Cotte (1918) and Andre (1949) trace the etymology of the name "kokkos" and its connection to the oak of the kermes insect. More recently, the Arab geographer and historian Al-Ya 'Qubi (A.D. 900) wrote that Assiut in Upper Egypt produced carpets dyed with kermes. In the Middle Ages and later, it is clear from many accounts that true kermes dye from the Mediterranean was becoming entrenched in European and Near East dyeing practices. The peak in oak kermes dye use was a rather broad one, extending from the 12th century to the 16th century. The phase-out of kermes dye parallels that, more or less, of kirmiz. Parallel decline probably occurred for the same reason: the introduction and rapidly expanding trade in American (Spanish) cactus cochineal dye from Spanish America sources. b) The Kermes Insect: Entomology and Geography Kermes dye was obtained from a specific species of coccid insect - Kermococcus vermilis Planchon (formerly Kermes ilicis L.) which is native to the Mediterranean and certain contiguous regions. The insects are round, smaller than a pea, contain coloring matter analogous to carmine, and are used in dyeing. The word crimson is derived from the word kermes which originates from the word "kirmizi" - means "red" in all Turkic languages. This dye-producing coccid breeds and feeds exclusively on the shrub oak which its scientific name is Quercus coccifera. This exclusivity to the parasite-host relationship was established by the zoologist Planchon in 1864   Class: Insecta Order: Hemiptera Family: Kermesidae Genus: Kermes Species: K. vermilio
Distribution of the Kermococcus vermilis is, of course, that of the host oak species. This oak is found predominantly along the shores of Mediterranean Europe, North Africa, and the Near East, with distribution extending along a fringe into Iraq and southwest Persia (see map above). In common with other dye-producing members of the Coccoidea, it is the females of Kermococcus vermilis which yield the dye material. The immature, larval female is attached to the branches of Kermes oak tree (Quercus coccifera) until March, when it is at a grain-sized, red-violet colored stage. It begins to grow rapidly from this point, and by the end of April is the size and color of a violet pea. The kermes worm is collected at this point, which jibes with various reports of insect gathering from kermes oaks in April and early May. The violet color of the female kermes insect at this point parallels that of the cochineal of Azerbaijan insect. Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Kermococcus Insect When collected and dried, the Kermococcus scale insect appears as a red-brown, smooth seed-like pellet. This probably accounts for early writers identifying the source of kermes as a plant rather than an animal. The color principle in the Kermococcus insect is almost exclusively kermesic acid. Kermesic acid as the main colorant in Kermococcus vermilis has been known since the early 20th century research of Otto Dimroth in Germany. Kermesic acid is distinct enough chemically from carminic acid, found in kirmiz - the cochineal of Azerbaijan and other cochineal scales, that a modern laboratory can distinguish between the two dyes. Kermesic acid, lac dye components and other dyes can be examined by high pressure liquid chromatography. Kermococcus Vermilis Dyestuff in the Decorative Arts The dye kermes is a mysterious colorant used since antiquity, but it has not been conclusively documented in Oriental rugs. Based on all the evidence, kermes dye (kermesic acid) has been used as a textile dyeing substance since antiquity and its use was particularly high for such purposes as "Venetian Scarlet" in Mediterranean Europe and areas in the major Mediterranean trade channels from the 12th to the 16th century. Technologically, the dye collection and isolation process was moderately tedious and the amount of dye extracted low for the effort and cost. Of all the Asiatic insect dye substances, kermes was the most costly and labor-intensive, except for possibly the Polish Cochineal. Given the amount of evidence about the likely cost and difficulties of dye production, it is not surprising that the dye was restricted to the costliest of fabrics and textiles. There may well have been efforts to transplant and expand Kermococcus vermilis along plantation lines, similar to the work with the American (Spanish) cactus coccid, but there is no evidence of success. For utilitarian Oriental rugs and textiles, the dye substance would probably always have been too costly. For the reds in classical carpets, things are a bit more interesting. According to Whiting, M.C., lac from India was the source of the scarlet red in classical Persian carpets, paralleling the use of lac in Mamluk carpets.
3) KERRIA LACCA / LAC   Lac is the scarlet resinous secretion of the insect Kerria lacca. This important animal is also known by some junior synonyms such as Laccifer lacca, Carteria lacca and Tachardia lacca. However, the oldest name Kerria lacca is back in current use. Kerria lacca belongs to the lac insect family Kerriidae, one of some 28 families of scale insects and mealy bugs belonging to the superfamily Coccoidea.  The lac insect of SE Asia is Kerria chinensis. Lac insects settle closely on the twigs of certain host trees, suck the plant sap and grow, all the while secreting lac resin from their bodies. Since the insects are closely spaced on the twigs, the resin forms continuous encrustations over the twigs of the host trees. These insects thrive only on certain trees, which are called host trees.   In India the most common host trees are: Dhak (Butea monosperma), Ber (Ziziphus mauritiana), Kusum (Schleichera oleosa) In Thailand the most common host trees are: Rain tree (Samanea saman), Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) In China the common host trees include: Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan), Hibiscus species   Dhak (Butea monosperma) Ber (Ziziphus mauritiana) Rain tree (Samanea saman) Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan)   Kusum (Schleichera oleosa)     Lac encrustations are removed from the twigs of host plants by scraping. The raw lac thus obtained is known as scraped lac or simply sticklac, which is further crushed into small grains, seived, washed and dried. This semi-refined product, called seedlac, is further refined by a system of hot melting, filtration and stretching into thin sheets which are subsequently broken into brittle flakes called shellac. Alternatively the purified lac resin can be in the form of circular discs called button lac. India is the principal lac producing country of the world, producing approximately 18,000 metric tonnes of unrefined (raw ) lac annually. About 85% of the country's production is exported to various countries. The USA, Germany and Egypt are some of the major lac importing countries of the world. Export of lac from India is mainly in the form of : Shellac / button lac Seedlac Dewaxed lac Bleached lac Aleuritic acid       What is Lac Composed Of? Lac has been found to be composed of the following constituents: Constituent Proportion Lac Resin (a polyester complex of straight-chain hydroxy fatty acids and sesquiterpenic acids) 68 % Lac Wax (a mixture of higher alcohols, acids and their esters) 6 % Lac Dye (a mixture of anthroquinoid derivatives) 1-2 % Others (insect debris, impurities etc.) 25 %     Lac dye in History Lac dye has been used in Persia since at least 714 B.C. According to Dr. Paul Mushak, an expert in chemical analysis of rug dyes, lac dye “…was the principal red dye used in classical Persian (Iranian) carpets...” Lac was primarily used to dye silk, yielding a range of colors from rose to purple. Lac dye is still produced in the same way as it was in medieval times. S