Leathermaking

choi

Growing leather in factories  l  More Skin in the Game; Genetic engineering can now be used to grow leather without any need to raise and kill animals. Economist, Aug 26, 2017.
https://www.economist.com/news/s ... leather-grown-using

the first three paragraphs:

"LEATHERMAKING is an ancient craft. The oldest leather artefact found so far is a 5,500-year-old shoe from a cave in Armenia, but paintings in Egyptian tombs show that, 7,000 years ago, leather was being turned into all manner of things, from sandals to buckets to military equipment. It is a fair bet that the use of animal skins for shelter and clothing goes back hundreds of thousands of years at least.

"Leathermaking is also, though, a nasty business. In 18th-century London the soaking of putrefying hides in urine and lime, to loosen any remaining flesh and hair, and the subsequent pounding of dog faeces into those skins to soften and preserve them, caused such a stench that the business was outlawed from the City proper and forced downwind and across the river into Bermondsey. In countries such as India and Japan, the trade tainted people as well as places and was (and often still remains) the preserve of social outcasts such as Dalits and Burakumin.

"Modern production methods are less stomach-turning than those of the 18th century. Dog turds, lime and urine have been replaced by chromium and other chemicals. But some of those replacements are, themselves, pretty caustic substances. And the whole leather industry, based as it is on animal hides, is vulnerable these days to sensibilities about the relationship between human beings and other animals that would scarcely have crossed peoples' minds in former years. Set against these considerations is a commercial one: leather, prized for its durability and suppleness, is a business worth $100bn a year.

My comment:
(a) I do not believe biotechnology has achieved the goal of man-made leather (therefore, there is no need to read the rest). But the quotation is interesting.
(b) skin in the game (phrase)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_in_the_game_(phrase)

(c) "a 5,500-year-old shoe from a cave in Armenia, but paintings in Egyptian tombs show that, 7,000 years ago, leather was being turned into all manner of things"
(i) Areni-1 shoe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areni-1_shoe

is "[m]ade from a single piece of cowhide.”  National Geographic.
(ii) leather making in an Egyptian tomb painting:

From (A) to (C) immediately below are from ONE panel in the paintings of Rekhmire's tomb.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rekhmire
(18th dynasty)
(A) Leather Workers, Tomb of Rekhmire. Metropolitan Museum of Art, undated (Accession Number: 35.101.2).
www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/544634
("ca 1504–1425 BC")
is a 临摹 of the same panel described in both (B) and (C)..
(B) Hany Farid, The Passage of Rekh-mi-Ra's Tomb. In A Brief History of Ancient Egyptian Tombs. Department of Computer Science, Dartmouth Univrsity.
www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/egypt.html
("Rekh-mi-Ra's tomb (also transliterated as Rekh-mi-Re) * * *  Shown below is the result of the first step in the reconstruction process. Shown is a composite of five separate images (at approximately 1/4 resolution -- these images were taken with a Kodak DCS PRO 14N digital camera with a 14 megapixel 1:1 CMOS sensor, using a Nikon 18-35 mm lens.) This scene depicts Rekh-mi-Ra, followed by attendants, inspecting craftsmen. Top register: jewelers and stone-vase makers; Second register: leather workers and rope makers")

The graphic below the afore-mentioned quotation is not magnified enough. Please proceed to (C).
(C) Su Bayfield, Tomb of Rekhmire (TT100).
https://egyptsites.wordpress.com ... -of-rekhmire-tt100/
("The paintings show the artisans at work on their crafts, with leather-workers, rope-makers, carpenters, metal-workers, brick-makers and builders")

Above these words is the enlarged (B), that is original.

Su is short for Susan.

(d) tanning (leather)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanning_(leather)