The authors of a recent article in the journal PLOS One present evidence for a large-scale manufacturing facility for purple dye at Tel Shiqmona that lasted for half a millennium (ca. 1100–600 BC) during the Iron Age. Tel Shiqmona is located on the southern end of modern-day Haifa and seems to have been selected in ancient times for dye production because of its proximity to three different varieties of murex snails, from which purple dye is derived. Archaeologists at the site analyzed 176 artifacts, most of which were stained with purple dye. These included vat rims, body sherds, vessels, and stone tools. The team analyzed the stratigraphic sequence of these artifacts to understand the history of the site. According to the study, in the early Iron Age, Tel Shiqmona was a small Phoenician village that engaged in small-scale purple dye production. In the ninth century BC, the site was surrounded by a fortified wall, and the scale of dye production increased dramatically. This continued until the fall of the Kingdom of Israel in 722 BC, after which production apparently was operated on a small scale by a local community for a short period of time. When the Assyrians took control of the region, industrial-scale production resumed. The authors of this study believe their work will help with the identification of future dye production sites around the Mediterranean.
Sources:
- https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0321082
- https://www.timesofisrael.com/made-from-snails-and-fit-for-kings-first-biblical-era-dye-factory-found-on-israels-coast/
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