Kermes (dye)

Kermes is a red dye derived from the dried bodies of the females of a scale insect in the genus Kermes, primarily Kermes vermilio. The Kermes insects are native to the Mediterranean region and are parasites living on the sap of the host plant, the Kermes oak (Quercus coccifera) and the Palestine oak (Quercus calliprinos).

These insects were used as a red dye since antiquity by the ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Indians, Greeks, Romans, and Iranians. The dye also served a number of ritual and practical purposes in the Hebrew Bible.

The kermes dye is a rich red, a crimson. It has good colour fastness in silk and wool. It was much esteemed in the medieval era for dyeing silk and wool, particularly scarlet cloth. Following the Columbian exchange it was superseded by the similar, and more easily obtained, cochineal.^{[citation needed]}

Kermes ultimately derives from the Sanskrit word कृमिज or kṛmija meaning "worm-made". This was adopted into Persian and later Arabic as قرمز qermez.^{[citation needed]} The modern English word kermes was borrowed from the French term kermès.

Kermes dye is of ancient origin; jars of kermes have been found in a Neolithic cave-burial at Adaouste, northeast of Aix-en-Provence. The early Egyptians made use of the kermes dye.

In the Middle Ages, rich crimson and scarlet silks dyed with kermes in the new silk-weaving centers of Italy and Sicily exceeded the legendary Tyrian purple "in status and desirability". The dyestuff was called "grain" (grana) in all Western European languages because the desiccated eggs resembled fine grains of wheat (or sand), and they were mistaken for plants; so textiles dyed with kermes were described as dyed in the grain. Woollens were frequently dyed blue with woad before spinning and weaving, and then piece-dyed in kermes, producing a wide range colours from blacks and grays through browns, murreys, purples, and sanguines. One source dated to the 12th-century notes that kermes dye adheres best to animal-based fibers (e.g. wool, silk, etc.), rather than to plant-based fibers (e.g. cotton, linen, etc.).

By the 14th and early 15th century, brilliant full grain pure kermes scarlet was "by far the most esteemed, most regal" colour for luxury woollen textiles in the Low Countries, England, France, Spain and Italy.

Following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, Mexican cochineal, which produced a stronger dye and could thus be used in smaller quantities, replaced kermes dyes in general use in Europe.