What is it about?
For about 500 years during the Iron Age (ca. 1100–600 BCE), Tel Shiqmona on Israel’s Carmel coast operated as a specialized center for producing purple dye, the luxurious color associated with royalty and ritual. It is the only known site in the Mediterranean where large-scale purple-dye workshops were active continuously through the Iron Age, the heart of the biblical period. Combining mineralogical, chemical and archaeological analyses, we reconstructed for the first time what these workshops looked like, including the shape of the large clay vats used in the process. The results show how the dye was produced, stored and handled on site, and offer a rare view of industrial technology and daily practice in the biblical world.
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Why is it important?
Purple dye was a true luxury product. It was colorfast, chemically bonded to the fiber, and depended on rare resources and specialist knowledge. It was worn by rulers and high priests and used in sacred spaces, and across many civilizations it became a symbol of wealth, power and sanctity. Although purple dye has fascinated researchers for generations, little was known about how it was actually produced, especially before the Roman period. Our study offers the first detailed view of its production on an industrial scale in the Iron Age. This helps explain how ancient dye industries were organized and how purple became a political, cultural and economic force, far beyond its role as a color.
Perspectives
This project began with a few traces of purple dye found almost by accident. As the work continued, we noticed more and more vessels bearing similar stains, and realizing the scale of the phenomenon was exciting: this is the largest collection of purple-stained pottery ever found at a single site. Through the careful, collaborative work of many researchers, we were able to reconstruct the purple-dye workshops of the Iron Age. The findings go beyond craft history and shed light on the region’s political economy. Our results suggest, for example, that the Kingdom of Israel gained control over the lucrative purple-dye industry at Shiqmona, a sign of its growing power.
Golan Shalvi
University of Haifa
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Tel Shiqmona during the Iron Age: A first glimpse into an ancient Mediterranean purple dye ‘factory’, PLOS One, April 2025, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0321082.
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