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P L A N T S U S E D A S N A T U R A L D Y E S O U R C E S IN T U
R K E YY U N U S D O Q A N , S U L E Y M A N B A ~ L A R , H A S A
N H f J S E Y IN M E R T , A N DG O N G ( f i R A Y
D o , an , Y u n u s (Dok uz Eyl i i l Universi ty, F acul ty of
Educat ion, De partm ent of Biology, 35150Buc a-lzmir , Turkey;
e-ma il [email protected]), Siileyman Ba~lar (Do kuz Eyl i i l
Univer-s i ty, Fa cul ty of Educat ion, De partm ent of Biology,
35150 Buca-lzmir, Turkey), Ha san I-IiiseyinM er t Do kuz Eylu l
University, Fa cul ty of Educat ion, Dep artme nt of Biology, 35150
Bu ca-lzmir ,Turkey), and Gi ingSr Ay ( Celal Ba yar Universi ty,
Fac. of Science-Art, De partm ent o f Biology,Muradiye-Manisa,
Turkey). PLANTS USED AS NATURALDYE SOURCES IN TURKEY. E co n o m i
cBotan y 57(4):442-453, 2003. This s tudy was carried out in the
regions w here handcraf ts suchas carpet and rug weaving are common
in Turkey. In the regions where natural dyes are used,123 plan t
species belonging to 50fa m il ies we re identi fied as source s of
natural dyes . In naturaldye product ion, di f ferent par ts o f
the plan t or the who le aboveground plan t is used. Ten di f
ferentco lors are ga ined f rom the p lan ts . Somet imes the sam e
co lor can be ob ta ined f rom d i f feren tplants. By m bcing
differe nt plants, i t is po ssib le to pro duc e various colors. W
e also identifiedmore than 12 natural and more than eight chemical
assis tant substances (mordant) that areused in the regions to bind
dy e to f ibers , to maintain the s trongness an d brightne ss of
thecolors, and to obtain various colors.Ke y W ord s: Dye plant;
traditional handcraft; Turkey.
Unt i l the 19 th cen tury , dyes produ ced f ro mn a t u ra l p
l an t s f o r m ed t h e b a s i s o f th e co s m e t i c sindus
t ry (Harmanclo~lu 1955) . In 1868 , as a r e -su l t o f the syn
the t i c p roduct ion of a l i zar in byG r aek e an d L e i b e r
m an , t h e p r o d u c t i o n o f n a t u ra ld y es w as r ep l
aced b y s y n t h e t i c d y es ( A l g an1976) . The t echnology
used in the product ion ofn a t u r a l d y es w as k n o w n i n C
h i n a a s e a r l y a s3000 B .c . and among the Ind ians ,
Phoenic ians ,Hebrews , and Venet i ans in the 13 th cen turyA . D
. an d l a t e r w as p a s s ed o n t o t h e G r eek s an dR o m
an s . I t w as a l s o k n o w n i n A f r i c a , M ex i co ,and
Peru (Anonymous 1991; Eyi Jbo~lu e t a l .1983) . The Turks success
fu l ly used the t ech-n iques o f na tura l dy ing , which w as
abou t to f adeb ecau s e o f m i g r a t i o n s i n th e M i d d
l e A g es , an din t roduced them to the wor ld (Eyi ibo~lu e t a
l .1983) . The French l earned to dye co t ton w i thna tura l roo
t dyes f rom the Turks in 1715 (A tay-olu 1933).
T h e w o r l d - f am o u s d y e ca l l ed " T u r k i s h r
ed "o r " E d i r n e r ed , " u s ed i n I zm i r c a r p et s , s
il k t ex -t i les o f Ana to l i a and Syr ia , and co t ton p
roduct so f T h es s a l i a an d M aced o n i a , i s p r o d u
ced f r o m
J Received 5 May 200 2; accepted 13 December2002.
R u b i a t i n c t o r u m L. (Ba~lar and Of las 1996 , B
ay-kara 1992; Baytop 1974) .
H i g h - q u a l i t y d y e s a n d g e n u i n e p a t t e r
n e dT u r k i s h g o o d s b ecam e f am o u s d u r i n g t h e
O t t o -m an t i m es b ecau s e t h e n a t u r a l d y i n g t e
ch n i q u esan d ce r t a i n s t y l e s w e r e o r g an i zed u
n d e r t h e co n -t ro l o f the government (Ozt t i rk 1982) . R
u b i at i n c t o r u m has been p lan ted in Per s ia , Anato l i
a ,E g y p t , an d I n d i a s in ce t h e b eg i n n i n g o f th
e 1 6 thcen t u r y ; i t w as a l s o p l an t ed i n E u r o p
ean co u n -t r i e s . T h e O t t o m an s p r o d u ced t w o t
h i r d s o fwor ld ' s roo t dyes in the 1700s (E~berk andH a r m
an o o ~ l u 1 95 1; E ~ b e r k an d K 6 ~ k e r 19 45 ).I n t h e
f o r e i g n tr ad e d u r i n g t h e O t t o m a n E m p i r e
,t h e m o s t i m p o r t an t cu s t o m er o f r o o t d y e ex
p o r t s,w h i ch cam e a f t e r t h e ex p o r t o f c e r ea l
an d s i l k ,w as E n g l an d ( B ay k a r a 1 9 9 2 ) . T h e p
r o d u c t i o n o fco t t o n an d t o b acco h a s t ak en t h e
l e ad o v e r t h ep r o d u c t i o n o f r o o t d y e p l an t
s m a i n l y b ecau s es y n t h e ti c d y e s u b s tan ces a r
e ch eap e r t o p r o d u ce(Bay kara 1992; Enez 1987). T urk i sh
carpe t s tha ta r e d y ed w i t h s y n t h e t ic d y es h av e
l o s t t h e i r im -p o r t an ce . B e f o r e t h e en t r an
ce o f s y n t h e t i c d y es u b s t an ces i n t o T u r k ey ,
v a l u ab l e w o v en ca r p e t san d r u g s w e r e d y ed w i
t h n a t u r a l d y es , h ad l i g h tpur i ty and d idn ' t g l
ide and f ade .
P lan t -or ig ina ted dyes a re s t i l l used success
-Economic Bo tany 57(4) pp. 442-453. 20039 2003 by The New York
Botanical Garden Press, Bronx, NY 10458-5126 U.S.A.
8/12/2019 Turkey Dogan
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2003] DOGAN ET AL. : NATURAL DYE SOURCES IN TURKEY 443
Fig. 1. Map of study area.
fully in several areas of arts and industry l ikecarpets, rugs,
textile, leather manufacturing, ce-ramics earthenware vessels, and
fine arts (Do,a n1994). The use of natural dyes has begun to
in-crease by the encouragement of the governmentwith various
scientific projects. Turkish carpetsdyed wi th wor ld famous
Turkish Red havesucceeded in taking a place among the mostsought
after carpets and outside demand has be-gun to increase rapidly.
The export of carpetsand rugs dyed by natural dyes produced in
YuntMountain (Manisa), Ayvacik (Canakkale), Bayat(Afyon) has de
monstrated the imp ortance of tra-ditional handcrafts using natural
dyes. For thisreason, we visi ted the regions where Turkishcarpets
and rugs were woven tradit ionally andobserved the works. The aim
of this study wasto identify the regions of Turkey where tradi-t
ional carpet-weaving methods are used. Thestudy also aimed to
identify types o f dyeing sub-stances used in those regions,
whether natural orsynthetic, and if they are natural, to identify
thespecies and parts of the plant used as a naturaldye source.
M TERI L ND METHOD SIn this study, the following important
regions
for the art of hand weaving were selected as the
research area: izmir (Bergama, Selquk), Manisa(Yunt Da~l,
Demirci, Kula, G6rdes), (~anakkale(Ayvaok) , Bahkesi r (Smdlrgl ) ,
Deniz , Mu~la(Milas, Bodrum), U~ak (E~me), Afyon (Bayat),Konya
(Ladik), Kayseri (Yahyah), Antalya (Di-vanalt l) , Isparta, Izmit
(Hereke), Sakarya, Bile-cik (S6~tit), Bursa, Samsun, Tokat, Ni~de,
Ak-saray, Kars, Van, Siirt (Fig. 1). In these cities,the plants
used for natural dye production ineach region were collected. After
identificationaccording to Davis (1965-1988), they werestored in
the personal herbarium.
Table 1 shows the results of this study. Theplants are presented
in the table in alphabeticalorder. In the table, the families of
the plant,whether it is distributed naturally, the parts ofthe
plant (flower, leaf, stem, bark, etc.) used, an dthe color obtained
from the plant are presented,and the findings are supported by
other litera-ture.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONThis study was carried out in the
regionswhere handcrafts l ike rug- and carpet-weaving
are produced by tradit ional methods in Turkey.It was found that
the traditional methods are stillcommon in weaving, but in some
regions syn-thetic dyes are used and in others natural ones
