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Leather, through thick and thin
The story of ancient Nubian leather has taken years of research and laboratory analysis of carefully preserved museum fragments as well as practical experiments to try and recreate the processes of how it was made.
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The rainfed Sahel landscape of Sudan supports a lot of animal herds, and has done so for thousands of years. They suit the semi-arid climatic conditions of the Sahel because the animals can move between seasonal pastures. Today these herds include well over 100 million cows, camels, sheep and goats, all of which are good for producing leather. The living heritage of Sudan includes artisanal tanning and leather making across most of the country. You can see a wide variety of leather products in most markets, including the shoemakers who produce the famous Sudanese markoob shoes. This heritage is the foundation for Sudan’s modern leather industry, which started in 1945 with a tannery and shoe factory in Khartoum. However, there are challenges.
Green Heritage workshop, Sheikan Museum, El Obeid 2022
In 2022 a very beautiful and complete leather camel saddle with all the trimmings was donated to the Sheikan Museum in El Obeid. The occasion was a workshop with local community leaders and town representatives. The aim was to produce an exhibition on ‘Green Heritage’ that examined how climate change was affecting local culture. The saddle was donated by the grandson of its owner, a local sheikh. The family had given up herding. As we admired it, we wondered whether a similar one could be made today. It was not made for sale but for use within a community context for a particular lifestyle. As we were working within a museum context we were interested to look back at ancient examples of leatherwork and lifestyles. Compared to stone or pottery, these are hard to find and hard to decipher. Like most organic materials, leather decomposes and returns to the earth leaving little trace. But in rare instances, where conditions are very dry, like in certain sites in Nubia in Northern Sudan, some fragments survive and they tell a very interesting story.
Leatherworking in ancient Nubia, Northern Sudan
The story of ancient Nubian leather has taken years of research and laboratory analysis of carefully preserved museum fragments as well as practical experiments to try and recreate the processes of how it was made. Lucy Skinner’s important research (on which this article is based) included visiting a traditional open air tannery near Omdurman. Although it only prepared second or third rate hides and produced cheap leather for local use, it afforded an insight into how a traditional tannery worked. One lesson learnt was that virtually all the materials used were from the immediate vicinity – the lime, the acacia tree seed pods, pigeon guano, corn husks and sesame oil.
We know that ancient Egyptians venerated Nubians as the preeminent leather making specialists and with good reason. Imagine wearing superfine leather garments that are exceptionally soft, light and supple, like the finest suede or chamois leather. These were found in male and female Nubian burials and included stitched panel skirts, sashes, kilts and loincloths. Even more extraordinary were garments made of pierced leather. Rows of tiny offset parallel cuts were made in leather sheets so when the skin was pulled out sideways it formed a net structure. This enabled the skins to be made into closefitting garments like loincloths and head coverings that were even more flexible and breathable. Tomb paintings suggest that the Nubian perforated loincloth became a favourite with Egyptians, especially those working in the fields or rowing boats during the pharaonic era. The garment was hard wearing as well as comfortable in the heat as it absorbed sweat and kept the body cool.
Besides garments, the Nubians had a multitude of other uses for leather. The famed Nubian archers used thick leather armguards curved to conform to the shape of the wrist. These protected the inside of the forearm from rebounding bowstring injuries. Other uses for leather included quivers and bags, straps of many kinds, tool lashings, bed strings, burial linings, animal harnesses, bracelets, containers and pouches and of course sandals. Each item was made from a specific type of leather, both in terms of the animal and the process used.
Nubians were highly skilled at skin processing and put them to many uses. The most basic form – rawhide – was used anywhere where plant based equivalents lacked strength. Rawhide requires very little processing beyond removing the skin of the animal and scraping off the inside surface of fats and flesh. Hair can be removed from the skin either by loosening it with an alkaline lye (a solution made from leached wood ash), or by ‘sweating.’ This involves leaving it in warm humid conditions to induce decomposition of the surface and easier removal of the hair. As this process weakens the rawhide, the hair might be left on for maximum strength – fur mats are a common example. The next stage is to cut the rawhide while it is still partially hydrated and still pliable. As it dries out it tightens and shrinks, which is a useful attribute when making angareb beds that are strong and still springy.
Although rawhide can be made from any kind of animal skin, for many purposes cattle-hide is preferred because it still has a thickness when it dries. Sheep and goat rawhide dries out like parchment but most animal skins can be kept pliable by ‘tanning’ or ‘leathering.’ These processes prevent the skin from stiffening, essentially by stopping the collagen fibres from sticking together, which can then be lubricated by soaking them with fat such as blubber, egg, or emulsified oils. The industry is notoriously noxious and often located downwind of any settlements. Tanning generally involves a lot of washing, soaking, scraping, stretching, pounding and hanging processes, and includes strong chemical agents like salt or slaked lime, or fermentation by enzymes that are derived from plants like acacia bark, animal urine or dung, as well as the application of fat solutions, smoking and colouring. The cookery involved has many variables that depend on the characteristics of the original hide, and each affects the qualities of the finished leather product.
Cattle hide is ideal for making leather. It produces a dense thick leather with more flexibility than rawhide but is relatively stiff and hard to stitch. Goatskin and sheepskin are much thinner and easier to handle but of the two, goatskin has a slightly denser structure and the leather is stronger and more elastic. It is better for sandal straps, for example, as they keep their shape longer. The ancient Nubians had very defined uses for animal hides and skins. The choice of which kind of skin was put to which of these uses was precise and depended on a number of practical and culturally relevant factors.
To produce the very fine Nubian ‘grain-off’ leather Lucy experimented with deer, sheep and goatskins, each of which produced slightly different results. She concluded the most likely contender were the hardy desert sheep breed that had coarse hair, not wool-producing coats. These are the preferred breed in Sudan today and were common in ancient Nubia. She suggests that the leather making expertise developed by the ancient Nubians can be associated with a preference for herding sheep rather than goats as these animals work better with a semi-nomadic lifestyle. Sheep are easier to direct and less likely to wander off and they don’t compete with humans in their eating habits but feed mostly on grasses.
The Nubian climate was (and still is) arid and better suited to semi-nomadic pastoralism than sedentary farming. Hardy animal breeds such as hair-sheep were well suited to the desert fringe environment in which they lived. Skin for producing leather clothing would have been a convenient byproduct to the milk and meat produced by the sheep. Constant low rainfall and high summer temperatures meant that at least until the Meroitic period, when methods of irrigation were introduced, most Nubians were not able to grow arable crops all year round. They were limited to the winter months, after the annual floods of the Nile. Instead, they produced some of the finest leatherwork in the ancient world.
Ethnographic Museum, Khartoum
The Ethnographic Museum in Khartoum had a very fine collection of leather goods collected over the previous centuries. They could tell real stories about culture and the environment, how it has changed and is still changing, through thick and thin. Its potential loss is grievous.
References
Lucy-Anne Skinner, ‘A visit to a traditional leather
tannery in Central Sudan,’ Sudan and Nubia 11, 125-126, 2007 https://www.academia.edu/28619704/SUDAN_and_NUBIA_125_A_visit_to_a_traditional_leather_tannery_in_Central_Sudan
Lucy-Anne Skinner, ‘Flocks and herds: animal skin and hide exploitation for the manufacture of Nubian leather,’ Sudan and Nubia 24, 272-281, 2020
https://www.sudarchrs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SARS_SN24_Skinner.pdf
The rainfed Sahel landscape of Sudan supports a lot of animal herds, and has done so for thousands of years. They suit the semi-arid climatic conditions of the Sahel because the animals can move between seasonal pastures. Today these herds include well over 100 million cows, camels, sheep and goats, all of which are good for producing leather. The living heritage of Sudan includes artisanal tanning and leather making across most of the country. You can see a wide variety of leather products in most markets, including the shoemakers who produce the famous Sudanese markoob shoes. This heritage is the foundation for Sudan’s modern leather industry, which started in 1945 with a tannery and shoe factory in Khartoum. However, there are challenges.
Green Heritage workshop, Sheikan Museum, El Obeid 2022
In 2022 a very beautiful and complete leather camel saddle with all the trimmings was donated to the Sheikan Museum in El Obeid. The occasion was a workshop with local community leaders and town representatives. The aim was to produce an exhibition on ‘Green Heritage’ that examined how climate change was affecting local culture. The saddle was donated by the grandson of its owner, a local sheikh. The family had given up herding. As we admired it, we wondered whether a similar one could be made today. It was not made for sale but for use within a community context for a particular lifestyle. As we were working within a museum context we were interested to look back at ancient examples of leatherwork and lifestyles. Compared to stone or pottery, these are hard to find and hard to decipher. Like most organic materials, leather decomposes and returns to the earth leaving little trace. But in rare instances, where conditions are very dry, like in certain sites in Nubia in Northern Sudan, some fragments survive and they tell a very interesting story.
Leatherworking in ancient Nubia, Northern Sudan
The story of ancient Nubian leather has taken years of research and laboratory analysis of carefully preserved museum fragments as well as practical experiments to try and recreate the processes of how it was made. Lucy Skinner’s important research (on which this article is based) included visiting a traditional open air tannery near Omdurman. Although it only prepared second or third rate hides and produced cheap leather for local use, it afforded an insight into how a traditional tannery worked. One lesson learnt was that virtually all the materials used were from the immediate vicinity – the lime, the acacia tree seed pods, pigeon guano, corn husks and sesame oil.
We know that ancient Egyptians venerated Nubians as the preeminent leather making specialists and with good reason. Imagine wearing superfine leather garments that are exceptionally soft, light and supple, like the finest suede or chamois leather. These were found in male and female Nubian burials and included stitched panel skirts, sashes, kilts and loincloths. Even more extraordinary were garments made of pierced leather. Rows of tiny offset parallel cuts were made in leather sheets so when the skin was pulled out sideways it formed a net structure. This enabled the skins to be made into closefitting garments like loincloths and head coverings that were even more flexible and breathable. Tomb paintings suggest that the Nubian perforated loincloth became a favourite with Egyptians, especially those working in the fields or rowing boats during the pharaonic era. The garment was hard wearing as well as comfortable in the heat as it absorbed sweat and kept the body cool.
Besides garments, the Nubians had a multitude of other uses for leather. The famed Nubian archers used thick leather armguards curved to conform to the shape of the wrist. These protected the inside of the forearm from rebounding bowstring injuries. Other uses for leather included quivers and bags, straps of many kinds, tool lashings, bed strings, burial linings, animal harnesses, bracelets, containers and pouches and of course sandals. Each item was made from a specific type of leather, both in terms of the animal and the process used.
Nubians were highly skilled at skin processing and put them to many uses. The most basic form – rawhide – was used anywhere where plant based equivalents lacked strength. Rawhide requires very little processing beyond removing the skin of the animal and scraping off the inside surface of fats and flesh. Hair can be removed from the skin either by loosening it with an alkaline lye (a solution made from leached wood ash), or by ‘sweating.’ This involves leaving it in warm humid conditions to induce decomposition of the surface and easier removal of the hair. As this process weakens the rawhide, the hair might be left on for maximum strength – fur mats are a common example. The next stage is to cut the rawhide while it is still partially hydrated and still pliable. As it dries out it tightens and shrinks, which is a useful attribute when making angareb beds that are strong and still springy.
Although rawhide can be made from any kind of animal skin, for many purposes cattle-hide is preferred because it still has a thickness when it dries. Sheep and goat rawhide dries out like parchment but most animal skins can be kept pliable by ‘tanning’ or ‘leathering.’ These processes prevent the skin from stiffening, essentially by stopping the collagen fibres from sticking together, which can then be lubricated by soaking them with fat such as blubber, egg, or emulsified oils. The industry is notoriously noxious and often located downwind of any settlements. Tanning generally involves a lot of washing, soaking, scraping, stretching, pounding and hanging processes, and includes strong chemical agents like salt or slaked lime, or fermentation by enzymes that are derived from plants like acacia bark, animal urine or dung, as well as the application of fat solutions, smoking and colouring. The cookery involved has many variables that depend on the characteristics of the original hide, and each affects the qualities of the finished leather product.
Cattle hide is ideal for making leather. It produces a dense thick leather with more flexibility than rawhide but is relatively stiff and hard to stitch. Goatskin and sheepskin are much thinner and easier to handle but of the two, goatskin has a slightly denser structure and the leather is stronger and more elastic. It is better for sandal straps, for example, as they keep their shape longer. The ancient Nubians had very defined uses for animal hides and skins. The choice of which kind of skin was put to which of these uses was precise and depended on a number of practical and culturally relevant factors.
To produce the very fine Nubian ‘grain-off’ leather Lucy experimented with deer, sheep and goatskins, each of which produced slightly different results. She concluded the most likely contender were the hardy desert sheep breed that had coarse hair, not wool-producing coats. These are the preferred breed in Sudan today and were common in ancient Nubia. She suggests that the leather making expertise developed by the ancient Nubians can be associated with a preference for herding sheep rather than goats as these animals work better with a semi-nomadic lifestyle. Sheep are easier to direct and less likely to wander off and they don’t compete with humans in their eating habits but feed mostly on grasses.
The Nubian climate was (and still is) arid and better suited to semi-nomadic pastoralism than sedentary farming. Hardy animal breeds such as hair-sheep were well suited to the desert fringe environment in which they lived. Skin for producing leather clothing would have been a convenient byproduct to the milk and meat produced by the sheep. Constant low rainfall and high summer temperatures meant that at least until the Meroitic period, when methods of irrigation were introduced, most Nubians were not able to grow arable crops all year round. They were limited to the winter months, after the annual floods of the Nile. Instead, they produced some of the finest leatherwork in the ancient world.
Ethnographic Museum, Khartoum
The Ethnographic Museum in Khartoum had a very fine collection of leather goods collected over the previous centuries. They could tell real stories about culture and the environment, how it has changed and is still changing, through thick and thin. Its potential loss is grievous.
References
Lucy-Anne Skinner, ‘A visit to a traditional leather
tannery in Central Sudan,’ Sudan and Nubia 11, 125-126, 2007 https://www.academia.edu/28619704/SUDAN_and_NUBIA_125_A_visit_to_a_traditional_leather_tannery_in_Central_Sudan
Lucy-Anne Skinner, ‘Flocks and herds: animal skin and hide exploitation for the manufacture of Nubian leather,’ Sudan and Nubia 24, 272-281, 2020
https://www.sudarchrs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SARS_SN24_Skinner.pdf
