et” variant (created through variant processing of the snails’ dye) are mentioned dozens of times in the Hebrew Bible and in the circa 690 BCE Sennacherib’s Cylinder, among other texts. The true purple is associated with royalty and the priesthood, as well as textiles used in the Tabernacle and Jewish Temple.
Until now, the earliest textile evidence of the royal purple dye were dated to at least 1,000 years later in the Roman period, when it was highly valued.
The paper, “Early evidence of royal purple dyed textile from Timna Valley (Israel),” was co-authored by Dr. Naama Sukenik from the Israel Antiquities Authority and Ben-Yosef, in collaboration with Prof. Zohar Amar, Dr. David Iluz and Dr. Alexander Varvak from Bar-Ilan University and the IAA’s Dr. Orit Shamir.
Ben-Yosef explained that Timna is first and foremost known for its copper, which was mined by ancient Land of Israel dwellers as early as the 5th millennia BCE, going all the way to the early Islamic period some 1,400 years ago. Even recently, he said, the nascent state of Israel had a small factory that produced copper there.
The dry climatic conditions at Timna, deep in the Arava Desert, allow for the unusually good preservation of organic materials, similar to the much later Roman era textile and leather finds discovered in the Judaean caves and at Masada.
What is noteworthy in Timna, said Ben-Yosef, is that the “big story” is related to the early Iron Age. “We’re talking about the 11th to the 9th centuries BCE, and it is a very debated period in the history of the land,” the period attributed to the rise of the biblical kingdoms of Judah and Israel.
Alongside remnants of textiles and other indications of relatively luxurious conditions, the picture painted after continued excavations is changing the view of the nomadic Edomite, said Ben-Yosef. “We see it as the early Edomite Kingdom,” versus a mere tribal camp.
With Timna’s arid desert, “We find stuff that you usually don’t find in regular excavations, such as textiles, ropes, leather, things that usually decay and are not preserved,” said Ben-Yosef. “So we have a unique window into the people of the region at that very early period through these amazing and unique organic materials. We have dozens and dozens of fragments of textiles and ropes, cordage, basketry, things that usually you don’t find.”
Sukenik, the IAA’s curator of organic finds, told The Times of Israel that every year the collaborative research group takes a trip to the Timna site to access — and marvel at — the extremely rare ancient finds.
The new finds were located in Slaves Hill, arguably the largest copper smelting camp in the valley, which the team has excavated for the past six years. While excavating, the archaeologists discerned tiny pieces of textiles of many types emerging from the ground. Some were derived from rough tent coverings, some from sacks, and some of the pieces were brightly colored.
Sukenik said the team noted the brilliant purple peeking out on three of the many scraps of textiles excavated that year.
“We saw a few pieces in which the shade was really special. We really wanted it to be argaman [true purple], the most expensive dye in the ancient textile industry,” Sukenik said.
From field to lab
The textile pieces were taken back to the Bar Ilan University laboratory, where it was confirmed that molecules 6-monobromoindigotin and 6,6-dibromoindigotin — unique to the murex sea snails which produce the true purple dye — were discovered on the cloth scraps after High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) analyses, which is used to identify organic dyestuff.
According to the paper, “Identifying the organic dye colorants in archaeological textiles is a complex task due to the low concentration of the molecules in the fibers and the limited amount of material available for destructive analysis.”
Hitting upon this result was a “Sisyphean task,” said Sukenik, and required very intensive work.
Upon learning that the dye was indeed the ancient true purple, Sukenik said, “Personally, it made me really happy.” She said that a t