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The Perfect
Piece of Leather
Parchment technology (or the art of transforming a smelly piece of cow, veal or goat skin into the sturdiest of all writing supports) is one of the main reasons we can still read manuscripts from Xth century Persia. The simple fact that these parchments have survived this long, offering evidence of the beauty and finesse of Koranic calligraphy through the ages is perhaps worth all the pains that tanners have endured to produce the 'perfect piece of leather'. The tanneries are rarely the most coveted neighborhood in town. Be it in Fes or Marrakech, the smell emanating from back alleys and courtyards keeps most dwellers and tourists at bay. Dawn is a good time to visit, when the city and the tanners awake to the new day, when smells have only started to pervade the air. As we walked the quiet streets of a waking Marrakech, we followed our noses towards the tannery district- easily recognizable by the rancid odors; odors from the pigeon excrement, lime, chemical dies and other sweetnesses that are used in this trade.
The
final phase is the most treacherous- dying. Tanners used to revel in luxuries
of organic dies-poppy, saffron, indigo.. |
Skins
are delivered in the mornings- cow, goat, sheep, veal skins. Most still
have hair- though the sheep skins have been cleaned for their wool (a
wool that won't be used for clothes- who want's to wear a dead sheep's
wool, no decent Muslim I can assure you-, but to stuff mattresses perhaps...).
A few days in the lime basins, then the pigeon droppings basins (both
used for their acidic properties) and that hair has been softened enough
to be scraped off with a great metal tool (see above). Skins
awaiting their scraping or dying phase hang from all corners of the tannery....
