An ancient cloth with a historic purple colored dye dating back to the Biblical King David's reign in 1000 B.C. has been unearthed by scientists in Israel.
Pieces of Biblical history have been discovered in a desert in Israel by a team of archeologists. An exploration to the southern end of Israel uncovered three pieces of textile scraps with Biblical royal purple dye. The scraps, which were unearthed in the Timna Valley near Eilat, have been found to date back to 1,000 BCE, around the same time of King David's rule.
According to BBC, these textile scraps with the "argaman" or Biblical royal purple dye are the first of its kind to be found and is the oldest historical discovery in the region. The site upon which it was found is called Slaves' Hill and is about 220 km to the south of Jerusalem.
The discovery of these fabric scraps is astonishing to historians, as it contains the Biblical royal purple dye, which was one of the most precious dyes in the ancient world. It also presents evidence of the "argaman" Biblical royal purple dye, which accounts can be found in the Bible, specifically those of an Edomite kingdom in the area during that period in time.
Moreover, these textile pieces with Biblical royal purple dye are the oldest evidence of the dye existing in the Southern Levant, The Times of Israel reported. This dye was not locally made, however. It was most likely imported into the Red Sea region by traders. According to the report, Tel Aviv University Professor Erez Ben-Yosef believed that this discovery is quite peculiar, as it is "very early period to find 'true purple' in use and it's a very strange location...deep in the desert, where we didn't [traditionally] think these prestigious materials were in use."
The discovery of the Biblical royal purple dye tinted scraps also offers new insight on the ancient kingdoms, especially those whose accounts can be found in the Bible. The report revealed that the "argaman" purple and its blue or azure counterpart "techelet" are often mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the Sennacherib's Cylinder from 690 BCE, and other Biblical manuscripts.
The Biblical royal purple dye or "Tyrian purple" dye was a highly valued material, often more expensive than gold because of how difficult it was to produce and the scarcity of the end product.
According to History, the purple dye trade was concentrated in Tyre, an ancient Phoenician city in today's Lebanon. The process of producing "Tyrian purple" dye was to collect a massive amount of a species of sea snails known as Bolinus brandaris, extract purple-producing mucus from their shells, process it with heat and light before creating the beautiful dye, which later became the preferred color dye of royalty and the highest of the classes.
Dr. Naama Sukenik from the Israel Antiquities Authority, who co-authored the paper "Early evidence of royal purple dyed textile from Timna Valley (Israel)," commented that discovering the textile pieces colored with the Biblical royal purple dye was similar to taking a "peek into the clothes closet from the period of David and Solomon and see the wardrobe of the elite that lived in the period at the copper mines."
