Leather And Skin as Markers of Early Exchanges Between Western Asia and Egypt?

Abstract

Leather is a durable and flexible material created by the tanning of animal rawhide and skin, the more often cattle hide. Rawhides and tanned hides are hence two separate commodities which may be traded under the different denominations of 'leather', 'skin' or 'hide'. The latter is important as these different terms, the former referring to the finished product and the latters to the raw ones, have come in many languages to qualify 'leather', hence the finished product whether water cleaned or tanned, or both. This when skins/hides, cleaned of fats but keeping the hair, constitute another separate trading commodity, but one this time however not only referred to as 'skin' or 'hide', but also 'fur', yet not as 'leather' as it is not first apparent. It is with 'skin' and 'leather' as a finished and non hairy product that the present study is concerned.

DOI:10.2458/azu_jaei_v06i2_de_vartavan