Archaeologists have uncovered new insights into an ancient purple dye factory at Tel Shiqmona, an archaeological site south of Haifa, Israel, along the Mediterranean coast, shedding light on life in biblical times.
Their findings, published in the journal PLOS One, confirm the site’s role in large-scale purple dye production dating back to 1100 B.C., during the Iron Age—over a century before the reigns of Kings Solomon and David.
Tel Shiqmona, according to the study’s authors, “can unequivocally be identified as a specialized facility for large-scale and long-term production of the lucrative purple dye.”
The site is unique, as the article notes: “It is the only site in the Near East or around the Mediterranean – indeed, in the entire world – where a sequence of purple-dye workshops has been excavated and which has clear evidence for large-scale, sustained manufacture of purple dye and dyeing in a specialized facility for half a millennium, during the Iron Age.”
The researchers highlight that “the number and diversity of artifacts related to purple dye manufacturing are unparalleled.”
Excavations revealed fragments of vats with purple stains and stone tools bearing purple residue. Unlike earlier assumptions that industrial-scale purple dye production began with the Romans in the first century A.D., Tel Shiqmona demonstrates this practice centuries earlier. The dye, derived from crushing mollusk shells, was highly prized in antiquity and is referenced in the Bible.
Acts 16:14 mentions Lydia, a merchant: “One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.”
In Mark 15:17, purple cloth is used to mock Jesus: “And they clothed him in a purple cloak; and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on him.”
Using chemical and mineralogical analyses, researchers studied the artifacts. Archaeologist Golan Shalvi told New Scientist that crushed mollusks secreted a greenish fluid that turned purple when oxidized. “However, in order to transform it into an actual dye – one that chemically bonds with textiles – it must be processed into a solution through a complex series of chemical steps,” Shalvi said.
He described the site as utilitarian: “It was an industrial site throughout most of the Iron Age, without monumental architecture or any particular beauty or elegance. I imagine it as a very smelly place – especially to a modern nose – since the production process emitted a terrible odor. I picture wool fleeces dyed in various shades drying outside and inside the buildings, which may have given the site a purplish-reddish-blue hue.”
The study found that Tel Shiqmona not only produced the dye but also dyed fibers and fleeces on-site. The article explains, “The size and opening of the vats would have allowed the dipping of the fleeces or fibers into the vats.
Given their substantial weight when full, it is unlikely that the vats were intended to be moved, nor could they be tilted. Producing the dye in these very large vessels and then transferring it to other containers for dyeing (at Shiqmona or elsewhere) does not seem to be a plausible reconstruction of the process.”
The authors conclude, “Therefore, we conclude that the entire manufacture, from harvesting the snails to dyeing, was conducted at the site, and that dye-production and dyeing were conducted in one container – apparently a rather efficient process.”
