What is it about?
Purple dye, made from marine snails, was a famous status symbol in the ancient Mediterranean. Tracing how its production spread from the Aegean to the Levant is difficult, because the evidence is often hard to identify and to date. This study uses Tel Shiqmona on Israel’s Carmel coast, an industrial centre with a continuous Iron Age sequence, as a benchmark and sets out detailed criteria for recognising dye production. Applying them to Bronze and Iron Age sites reveals a 300-year gap (c. 950–650 BC) in which Shiqmona is the only site with significant evidence of production.
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Why is it important?
The study argues that this gap reflects consolidation rather than decline: production moved from scattered local crafts to a centralised, state-controlled industry, first seen at Shiqmona in the 9th century BC. When the industry expanded again in the Levant in the 7th century BC, under Assyrian rule, it may have followed this ‘Shiqmona model’. The chronologically detailed database presented here provides a basis for studying the history of purple dye across the whole Mediterranean.
Perspectives
Purple dye is often discussed as if its history were continuous and well documented. Working through the evidence site by site showed how uneven that record really is. This paper aims to put the study of ancient purple on firmer methodological ground, and it is open access, so anyone interested can read it in full.
Golan Shalvi
University of Haifa
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: MINDING THE GAP: A METHODOLOGICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL REASSESSMENT OF EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN PURPLE‐DYE PRODUCTION IN THE BRONZE AND IRON AGES, Oxford Journal of Archaeology, September 2026, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/ojoa.70027.
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