I mentioned Fez (also spelled as Fès or Fes) Morocco yesterday in the post on Madder Lake. Unfamiliar with Moroccan tanneries, the color vats intrigued me. Here is an interesting side note and some visuals on the tanning of leather that uses an 11th century technique that is still in use today. Barbara Weibel posted a nice article and photos on tanneries in 2013. Here is the actual link for much of the information below: http://holeinthedonut.com/2013/08/06/leather-tanneries-fez-morocco/
Many of the images available online depict the Chouara Tannery. Various article note that is the largest of the three tanneries in Fez, Morocco. Built in the 11th century, leather goods have been produced there using the exact same method for more than a thousand years.
The dying process: skins are first placed into the white vats, which contain a mixture of water, limestone, and pigeon droppings. The limestone helps to remove hair from the skins while the acid in the pigeon droppings softens the hides. Three days later the skins are removed and washed, after which they are placed in the dying pits.
Dye colors are all derived from natural products: red from the poppy flower, orange from henna, blue from indigo, and yellow from saffron, but because saffron is so expensive yellows are produced by hand-rubbing a small amount of the spice mixed with oil into the hides. The colors in the dye pits vary from day to day.
Men in skimpy shorts, many with bare feet and legs, stand thigh-high in the dye solutions to agitate the hides. They basically function as human washing machines. Camel, sheep, cow, and goat hides are placed in the dye vats. Then, the skins are pulled out of the pits once the desired colors are achieved, then trimmed and laid out to dry on in the sun. Next, they dry hides are moved inside for cutting and sewing. Often design and color will appear the same, but the feel may be very different due to the type of skin used for production. Touch will identify whether they had been made from camel, sheep, cow, or goat hides.
What I find interesting is the used of pigeon droppings. I believed that this particular type of bird excrement is considered toxic waste in the United States and needs men in haz mat suits to remove it from roof tops when either restoring or repairing some buildings. If I am not mistaken, this was a problem when repairing the Minneapolis Scottish Rite roof years ago. It would be interesting to see the repercussions of handling pigeon droppings and what the average life expectancy of a tannery worker is today, versus in the 11th century.
Here is the official word from one business selling a product called Germ Clear Bird Droppings Cleaner: “Although some commercial contractors will offer the client cleaning works on the basis that guano can be a health hazard, in reality cleaning is for aesthetic and practical reasons rather than to control disease. Much is made of the potential to contract a disease from contact with pigeon droppings, but this is often over exaggerated and the likelihood of a human being contracting a disease from contact with pigeons or their excrement is very low and certainly no higher than having contact with your cat. In the main it is the media that have perpetuated this hype for profit. The media needs to sell newspapers and the pest control industry needs to sell its services. In both cases the public is sometimes misled. Most experts are of the opinion that human contact with pigeons and/or their excrement is no more harmful than contact with a caged bird or any other family pet. The only way in which pigeon guano can usually have a detrimental effect on human health is where an individual who has a pre-existing respiratory condition comes into contact with very well dried guano. In these cases it is possible that the inhalation of dust, created when well-dried guano are disturbed, may irritate the bronchial passages. In almost every situation “dampening down” the droppings with water before the commencement of cleaning will prevent the creation of dust.” Here’s the link http://www.pigeoncontrolresourcecentre.org/html/cleaning-pigeon-droppings.html
I wonder if the individual picking up pigeon droppings is wearing gloves and a mask.
