Rare 1,600-year-old purple fabric — woven with gold threads — found in France. See it
Archaeologists in central France looked inside the ancient sarcophagus they’d recently unearthed. Something across the top of the burial seemed to glint in the sun.
It turned out to be a 1,600-year-old fabric fragment woven with gold threads.
A team of archaeologists spent several months of 2020 excavating a massive ancient burial ground in Autun. The site included about 230 tombs dating back roughly 1,500 to 1,700 years, the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research said in a Feb. 11 news release.
The burials, some of which were rare lead coffins, included a wide array of exceptional artifacts such as a glass vase, gold jewelry and pins carved of amber.
When archaeologists excavated the unimpressively named Burial 47, they found another rare surprise: a roughly 5-foot-long piece of gold fabric, according to a YouTube video from the institute translated using Google Translate.
The ancient material was extremely delicate, archaeologists said. They removed the fabric and surrounding dirt, then placed it in a refrigerated environment to prevent it from molding or deteriorating.
After detailed scans of the find and a yearslong preservation process, experts identified the material as a 1,600-year-old purple fabric woven with gold threads. Its purple dye, now faded to a red tint, was associated with elite aristocracy in ancient times, the institute said.
Originally, the ancient cloth may have had a plant or floral-themed design, the institute said. Photos show the vague outline of a leaf-shaped patch of threads and what the fabric may have looked like when buried.
Archaeologists also found five more fragments of gold fabric. Most of these, including Burial 47, were found in lead coffins, but one was found in a wooden coffin.
The rare fabrics from Autun are on temporary display at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris until July, the institute said.
Autun is a city in central France and a roughly 180-mile drive southeast from Paris.
Google Translate was used to translate the news releases and YouTube video from the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap).
This story was originally published February 12, 2025 at 11:43 AM with the headline "Rare 1,600-year-old purple fabric — woven with gold threads — found in France. See it."
