The first piece of purple fabric from the Time of King David and King Solomon to represent a place of honor has been discovered.
Scientists have found a rare piece of purple fringed wool fabric in Israel from the time of King David and King Solomon, described in the Bible more than 3,000 years ago. The purple color is mentioned in several places in the Bible, but this is the first time archaeologists have found a purple fabric.
Naama Sukenik of the Israel Antiquities Authority said, “This is an exciting and important discovery, the first purple fabric from the time of David and Solomon to be found to date, representing a position of prestige. In ancient times, purple was usually found on the clothing of people of high status, priests and, of course, royalty.”
“The color was beautiful and would not fade, but the process of producing purple dye was difficult, making it usually more expensive than Gold.”
“Before this, we have only found dyes contained inside shells, or pottery, evidence of the existence of a purple dye industry in the Iron Age. Now, for the first time, there is evidence of dyed fabric, which has been preserved for about three thousand years.”
Researchers found the fabric in the Timna Valley in southern Israel, which is rich in copper and was the site of copper mining more than 5,000 years ago. It is a woolen fabric with purple dyed wool threads woven into it.
The fabric was identified as coming from around 1000 B.C., the time when King David and King Solomon ruled Jerusalem as recorded in the Bible. The Iron Age in the Timna Valley region lasted from about 586 BCE to 1200 CE.
The study, published in the journal Public Library of Science Omnibus (PLOS ONE), describes how the dyes were extracted from the body glands of a marine mollusk using a complex chemical process that typically took several days to complete and then stored inside the shell. This mollusk lives in the Mediterranean Sea, more than two hundred and ninety kilometers from the Timna River Valley.
Researchers say that the Timna Valley was a copper mining center during the Iron Age. At that time, copper mining had the same status as modern oil. The technology of copper refining was highly classified at that time and those who possessed this knowledge were the senior technical people of the time.
Archaeologists found three pieces of shredded fabric inside the slag heap of one of the largest copper refining sites in the Timna Valley region, and it was these fabrics. At first they couldn’t believe it, finding a piece of fabric actually dyed purple at such an ancient site.
Recent Comments