A new way of looking at old textiles

The British Museum has developed an amazing new technique which images ancient textiles without destroying them. 

In the past, the only way to find out about cloths from history was to cut out a small piece and then do the requisite tests. Now multispectral images can revela not only the dyes that were used but also the ways in which textiles have been created. This amazing discovery has led to the knowledge that a child's sock, found in a rubbish dump from Ancient Egypt and dating from 300AD, was striped using just three colours - madder, woad and weld. 

You can find out more from the Guardian online using this link.