History says….

The tanning industry in Pompei

One tannery at least was working when the Vesuvio erupted – The Romans organised tanners’ corporation as early as the VII century B.C.

One tannery at least was working when the Vesuvio erupted – The Romans organised tanners’ corporation as early as the VII century B.C.

The art of tanning in Italy was well known even at the Etruscans’ time. Their products were famous in ancient times: excellent male shoes with strong sole, knights’ shields and saddlery, while ladies could wear elegant ankle-fastened sandals.

The Romans, surely influenced by the Etruscan tanning art, were the first who organised tanners in corporations as early as the VII century B.C.; these corporations were artisans’ communities having their own hierarchy: young beginners, seniors, masters, administrators, etc. The job was inherited by law.

We do not know much about the tanning technologies of that time, for sure the main tanning methods were fat and alum tanning for the lighter skins, while vegetable juice tanning was carried out on heavy hides. As far as unhairing is concerned, they probably used the ash produced by wood combustion and exploited the caustic properties of sodium and potassium carbonate therein present, but we can’t exclude the heating technique where hair looses by effect of enzymes and then is removed with a crescent iron, thus exerting an action that is very similar to what tanners did until a few decades ago.

We do not know if they used calcium hydrate in the unhairing process, but maybe this matter will be disclosed by analysing vats remains.

Tanning alum was extracted from caves on Ischia Island or in Lazio region. Ischia caves were nearly worked out to meet tanneries’ demands.

Pliny the Elder (23-79 A.D.), writer and troop leader who died in Vesuvio eruption, who left from Capo Miseno and led the Roman fleet that was trying to help Pompei inhabitants, described tannin extraction from exotic plants (probably Catecý) and from gall-nuts (oaks’ pathologic outgrowths) in his famous encyclopaedia “Naturalis Historia”.

In his treatise on the tanning industry, Pliny told about the well-known reaction between natural tannins and iron, which produced a black lacquer that could be used as ink as well as a dye for hides and skins.

We are talking about the eruption of Vesuvio occurred on August 24th in the year 79 A.D., which in few days buried a flourishing town in full cultural, sporty, commercial and artisanal activity.

When the volcano erupted, one tannery at least was working in Pompei, which was buried with all the rest of the town and now, after about two thousand years, reveals us its characteristics and organization.

Near Stabia door, in the V block, there was a small, well-organised tannery at the side of a big house, which included rooms for the preparation of tanning agents, served by piping and collecting jars, and a 120 sq.mts. room containing twelve 1.60 mt. diameter vats in groups of four, served by canals for water and tanning product loading, provided with drain plug.

The three smaller vats near the right wall, measuring 1.25 mt. diameter, were destined for alum tanning on small-sized skins.

Cutting, fleshing and unhairing tools were also found in this room, now preserved in Naple’s Archaeological Museum. Outside, at the corner of the street, there was a public fountain, the waste water of which was probably collected by the small tannery, because leather processing required large amounts of water. Now we can’t see these vats, because they were uncovered, studied – even by a delegation of French scholars in recent times - and then re-covered, but what they could understand from the organisation of the tannery and from processing and tanning techniques, is that tanning art doesn’t seem to have evolved for almost two millennia, that is until the beginning of the twentieth century, when technology could progress thanks to the introduction of chrome salts and to the use of electrically-operated machines.

Bruno Cortese