Ottoman palace weavings between different periods: material characterization, comparison and suggestions for conservation
Authors: Torgan Güzel Emine 
Published: August 2023

Historical textiles, which are an invaluable part of the cultural material heritage, and the materials used in their production bear witness to the social past. Although a textile object was originally produced out of necessity, later it became a symbol of magnificence, power, and might. The most important basic elements that contribute to these properties are the materials used in its production, among which silk fiber, and metallic threads containing gold and silver are the leading ones. In addition to the aging behavior of textile objects due to their organic structure, the deterioration process is accelerated due to various factors such as use, environmental factors, mismanagement, inappropriate storage and display conditions, incorrect restoration-conservation practices, natural disasters, etc. In this study, a total of 7 metallic threaded textile works dated between the 16 and 19 centuries and used by the Ottoman Palace dynasty in the textile collection of the Topkapı Palace Museum (TPM) were examined. In this context, visual evaluation/documentation, color measurement, technical analysis, dyestuff analysis, elemental composition, and corrosion products were determined in the historical textiles. In this study, the following analytical instruments were used for the analyses: a CIEL*a*b* spectrophotometer, an optical microscope (OM), high-performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array detection (HPLC–PDA), scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM–EDX). Thanks to this study, it was aimed to document the palace fabrics containing silk and metallic yarn used in the Ottoman period, to characterize the materials they contain, to determine the production method, and to determine of the deterioration products that occur over time. According to the results obtained from the analyses, insect-origin dyestuffs in red, pink, and purple were used. When the fabrics of the sixteenth century and the fabrics of the nineteenth century were compared, it was determined that there was a decrease in the quality of weaving. In addition, it was determined that the fiber in the metallic yarn core in the textile object dated to the end of the 19th/beginning of the twentieth century was produced by using cotton instead of silk, and also the thickness of the metal strip and the wrapping density were decreased. No significant difference was detected in the chemical composition of the strips in the metallic yarns found in the examined historical textiles, but only the silver element was detected in the metal strip, although the metallic yarn core in the last period textile object was yellow in color. All these results showed that there was a difference between the sixteenth-century textiles of the rise of the Ottoman Empire and the nineteenth-century textiles of the dissolution period. This difference is especially evident in the quality of the weaving, the density of the materials used, and the chemical composition of the metal strip. In addition, all these analyses will guide textile experts in possible restoration-conservation studies.