They find fabrics dyed with royal purple that date back to the time of Kings David and Solomon

Examining colored fabrics from the Timna Valley - a former copper-producing district in southern Israel - in a study that has lasted several years, researchers were surprised to find remnants of fabric, a tassel and wool fibers dyed with royal purple.

Direct radiocarbon dating confirms that the finds date to approximately 1000 BC, corresponding to the biblical monarchies of David and Solomon in Jerusalem. Produced from species of mollusks found in the Mediterranean, more than 300 kilometers from Timna, the dye is often mentioned in the Bible and appears in various Jewish and Christian contexts.

It is the first time purple-dyed Iron Age fabrics have been found in Israel, or even in the entire southern Levant. The research was carried out by Dr. Naama Sukenik, from the Israel Antiquities Authority, and Professor Erez Ben-Yosef, from Tel Aviv University's Department of Archeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, in collaboration with the Professor Zohar Amar, Dr. David Iluz and Dr. Alexander Varvak, from Bar-Ilan University, and Dr. Orit Shamir, from the Israel Antiquities Authority. The unexpected findings are published in the prestigious journal PLOS ONE .

This is a very exciting and important discovery explains Dr. Naama Sukenik, curator of organic finds at the Israel Antiquities Authority. This is the first textile piece found from the time of David and Solomon that is dyed with the prestigious purple dye. In ancient times purple attire was associated with nobility, priests and, of course, royalty. The beautiful hue of purple, the fact that it does not fade, and the difficulty of producing the dye, which is found in trace amounts in the body of molluscs, made it the most highly valued of the dyes, often costing more. than gold.

Until the present discovery, we had only found mollusk shell residues and dye-stained pottery, providing evidence of the Iron Age purple industry. Now, for the first time, we have direct evidence of the dyed fabrics themselves, preserved for some 3,000 years .

Professor Erez Ben-Yosef, from Tel Aviv University's Department of Archaeology, says:As a result of the region's extremely dry climate we are also able to recover organic materials such as textiles, ropes and leather from the Iron Age, from the time of David and Solomon, giving us a unique insight into life in biblical times. If we were to dig for another hundred years in Jerusalem, we would not discover textiles from 3,000 years ago. Timna's state of preservation is exceptional, and is matched only by much later sites such as Masada and the Judean Desert Caves.

Over the last few years, we have been excavating a new site within Timna, known as the 'Slave Hill'. The name may be misleading as, far from being slaves, the workers were highly skilled metalworkers. Timna was a center of copper production, the Iron Age equivalent of today's oil. The smelting of copper required advanced metallurgical knowledge that was a closely guarded secret, and those who possessed this knowledge were the "high-tech" experts of the day.

Slaver's Hill is the largest copper smelting site in the valley and is littered with mounds of industrial waste, such as slag from smelting furnaces. In one of these piles were three pieces of colored cloth. The color immediately caught our eye, but we had a hard time believing that we had found a true purple from such an ancient time .

According to the researchers, true purple was produced from three species of molluscs native to the Mediterranean Sea:Hexaplex trunculus , Bolinus brandaris and Stramonita haemastoma . The dye was produced from a gland inside the mollusk's body through a complex chemical process that lasted several days. Today, most scholars agree that the two precious dyes, purple (argaman) and light blue, or azure (tekhelet), were produced from the purple dye mollusk under different conditions of light exposure. .

When exposed to light, azure is obtained, while without exposure to light, a purple hue is obtained. These colors are often mentioned together in ancient sources, and both have symbolic and religious significance to this day. The priests of the Temple, David and Solomon, and Jesus of Nazareth are described as wearing purple clothing.

Analytical tests carried out in the laboratories of Bar Ilan University, together with the dyes reconstructed by Professor Zohar Amar and Dr. Naama Sukenik, allow the identification of the species used to dye Timna fabrics and the desired shades. To reconstruct the mollusc dyeing process, Prof. Amar traveled to Italy, where he minced thousands of molluscs (which Italians eat) and produced raw material from their dye glands that was used in hundreds of attempts to reconstruct the old stained. Hands-on work took us back thousands of years , says Professor Amar, and has allowed us to better understand the obscure historical sources associated with the beautiful colors blue and purple .

The dye was identified with an advanced analytical instrument (HPLC) which indicated the presence of unique dye molecules, originating only from certain mollusc species. According to Dr. Naama Sukenik, most of the colored textiles found at Timna, and in archaeological research in general, were dyed with various plant-based dyes that were readily available and easy to dye. The use of animal-based dyes is considered far more prestigious, and served as an important indicator of the wearer's high economic and social status.

The remains of purple-dyed cloth that we have found are not only the oldest in Israel, but in the southern Levant in general. We also believe that we have managed to identify the double dye method in one of the fragments, in which two species of molluscs were used in a sophisticated way to enrich the dye. This technology is described by the Roman historian Pliny the Elder, from the 1st century AD, and the dye it produced was considered the most prestigious .

Professor Ben-Yosef identifies the Timna copper-producing center as part of the biblical kingdom of Edom, which bordered the kingdom of Israel to the south. According to him, the spectacular finds should revolutionize our concepts of the nomadic societies of the Iron Age. The new finds reinforce our assumption that there was an elite in Timna, attesting to a stratified society. Furthermore, since molluscs are indigenous to the Mediterranean, it is clear that this society had trade relations with other peoples who lived on the coastal plain.

However, we are not aware of any permanent settlement in Edomite territory. The Edomite kingdom was a kingdom of nomads in the early Iron Age. When we think of nomads, we find it hard to shake comparisons with contemporary Bedouins and therefore find it hard to imagine kings without magnificent stone palaces and walled cities. However, under certain circumstances, nomads can also create a complex sociopolitical structure, which the biblical writers might identify as a kingdom.

Of course, all this debate has repercussions on our understanding of Jerusalem in the same period. We know that the tribes of Israel were originally nomadic and that the settlement process was gradual and prolonged. Archaeologists search for the palace of King David. However, it is possible that David did not express his wealth in splendid buildings, but with objects more typical of a nomadic heritage, such as textiles and artifacts .

According to Ben-Yosef, it is a mistake to assume that if great buildings and fortresses have not been found, then the biblical descriptions of the United Monarchy in Jerusalem must be literary fiction. Our new research in Timna has shown us that, even without such buildings, there were kings in our region who ruled complex societies, formed alliances and trade relations, and waged war against each other. The wealth of a nomadic society was not measured in palaces and stone monuments, but in things that were no less valued in the ancient world, such as the copper produced in Timna and the purple dye that was traded from its copper smelters.> .