Unveiled in Israel: The Clandestine 2,900-Year-Old Workshop Behind the Legendary Tyrian Purple Dye
The Tyrian Purple Dye Factory Found On The Coast Of Israel
Hecht Museum, University of HaifaThe Tel Shiqmona archaeological site where the Tyrian purple dye factory was discovered.
As described in the journal PLOS ONE, the dye factory was discovered at the Tel Shiqmona archaeological site in northern Israel.
“The discovery of the factory wasn’t the result of a single dramatic moment — it was more of a gradual realization based on several clues,” study lead author Golan Shalvi explained to All That’s Interesting in an email. “We already knew the site had been associated with purple dye production, as sherds with visible traces of dye were uncovered during excavations in the 1960s and 1970s… The breakthrough came when I began processing materials from the earlier excavations and started to understand the scale of the phenomenon — both in terms of quantity and the long time span it represented. That’s when things became truly surprising.”
Indeed, archaeologists discovered evidence of the production of Tyrian purple on a massive scale. The dye is made from sea snail (Hexaplex trunculus) mucus, and archaeologists discovered 400 sea snail shells at the site, as well as 100-gallon ceramic vats and a variety of stone tools. They realized that the dye factory at Tel Shiqmona was enormous — perhaps one of the largest of the ancient world.
“In fact,” Shalvi told All That’s Interesting, “Tel Shiqmona yielded more purple-stained pottery fragments than all other ancient sites combined.”
The site’s location, while disadvantageous for trading, was ideal because of its “access to the marine resource essential to dye production: murex snails.”
