Why Do Bedouins wear black in the desert?

U

ukknifer

Joined
Jan 30, 2010
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424
Hi

What I was told is that white is better because it reflects heat. It will be cooler inside a white car and very hot inside a black car. I saw someone frying an egg on a black car in a documentary while the egg was still the same on a white car.

So why does the tawariq and other bedwins wear all those layers of black clothes.
or is it just fashion?

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Found this picture while searching for evidence. She is not a tawariq but I thought you might like it :D
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The color of the clothes is less relevant than the material and the fit. They are very loose and lightweight, and by covering up so thoroughly, they keep the sun's direct heat off, and allow for evaporative cooling as well. I'm not sure if it's true in this case, but the darker clothes may actually shed heat faster.
 
IIRC--the clothes the Bedouins wear are sort of like gauze. They wear several layers so that it shades them and cools as well.

BTW -- When I worked as a mechanic, we had one of those temperature gun thingies. Two cars parked next to each other overnite, measured the next afternoon. The baby blue M. Benz hood was 145 degrees; the black BMW was 185 degrees. You can imagine a similar difference inside the cars.
 
I know that in some deserts it gets F'ing cold. It could be the reason, they want to be heated.
 
Black ? No , it's blue and that's why they call them the "blue people " .And yes the color isn't "color fast" it rubs off on the skin making them blue people !!
 
Esav Benyamin said:
I'm not sure if it's true in this case, but the darker clothes may actually shed heat faster.
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I remember reading that the SR-71 was painted black for that reason; while black heats up the quickest it also dissipates heat the quickest as well.
 
I know that for there tents black is used so that the top heats up drawing in cool air from the ground and using the 'heat stack' effect to aid natural ventilation. Perhaps it's the same for the clothes?
 
BlackHills said:
I remember reading that the SR-71 was painted black for that reason; while black heats up the quickest it also dissipates heat the quickest as well.
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Nope!

They originally wanted to paint it pink, but someone used that colour and all they had was some black...
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Think of it as insulation. It actualy helps them stay cooler under the cloths. Main thing you want to protect your self from is the sun. If you do spend alot of time under the sun black is actualy better then white. But i seen many of them wear whites around the tent or when they have guests.. Also the white robes would be much thiner and breath better. Most of the time the cloths would be loose around the neck to let the hit escape. Some of them would even wear wool/felt outer layer. Lets also not forget that they used the best they had at the time. Im sure if they had better material to make the cloth from like syntatices(sp) they would have used it as well.

Sasha
 
I did a physics project on this high school; The colour white reflects radiant heat (infrared wave lengths) the best, and black absorbs radiant heat the best. I found a study that said that the coolest clothes to wear in an environment that is hot with a constant slight breeze were loose black. This is because the radiant heat from the sun that hits the clothes is quickly radiated back into the close air layer and then blown away as convected heat. PLUS the radiant and conducted heat from the body is radiated quickly to the surrounding air layer and then blown away as convected heat. This is enhanced by the fact that loose clothes create their own convection currents.

They also said that tight black clothes were still worse than tight white clothes. I can't remember how they did these tests, but it makes sense to me. Kind of like how polar bears have black skin under a layer of "transparent" hair that allows them to absorb radiated heat, and to create a warmer layer within their fur... at least that's what I was told.

Chris
 
RoyalM said:
I know that for there tents black is used so that the top heats up drawing in cool air from the ground and using the 'heat stack' effect to aid natural ventilation. Perhaps it's the same for the clothes?
Click to expand...

That's what I read (somewhere, it's been a while). The loose black robes heat the inside space, which produces a column of rising and cooling air around the wearer. It's a solar powered air-conditioning unit.
 
Chris_Norden said:
Kind of like how polar bears have black skin under a layer of "transparent" hair that allows them to absorb radiated heat, and to create a warmer layer within their fur... at least that's what I was told.

Chris
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The fur on a polar bear also acts as a very efficient waveguide in the infrared range. So it basically transmits the IR directly to it's black skin where it is efficiently absorbed. Isn't physics cool? :D

While I understand the reasons why all these people wear all this clothing, it still makes me shudder. I'm a very warm blooded person, and love the cooler times of the year. One thing that I've never figured out was why some people wear all this clothing, and then the Australian Aborigines and Southwest Apaches (to name a couple) went almost naked in the heat. Interesting.
 
Sodak , the old Saying is "mad dogs and Englishmen stay out in the mid-day sun "
 
mete said:
Sodak , the old Saying is "mad dogs and Englishmen stay out in the mid-day sun "
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Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
The toughest Burmese bandit can never understand it.
In Rangoon the heat of noon is just what the natives shun.
They put their scotch or rye down, and lie down.
In the jungle town where the sun beats down,
to the rage of man or beast,
The English garb of the English sahib merely gets a bit more creased.
In Bangkok, at twelve o'clock, they foam at the mouth and run,
But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
 
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