The Secrets of Purple | Time capsule

The Secrets of Purple

A color more precious than gold

What is it that makes a certain color prestigious and prized more than others? Why was purple—with shades ranging from deep red-purple to sky-blue purple—associated in ancient times with myths, rulers and religious priesthood, and at times taken to be more precious than gold? 

Purple dye was highly valued for three main reasons: its extraordinary resilience, the elaborate professional knowledge required for its preparation, and the huge number of murex sea snails needed in order to produce it.

A secret within a snail

This time capsule invites you to dive into the story of one of the most fascinating substances produced from a natural source. We will encounter the different stages involved in the production of purple dye—from colorless slime contained inside the shell of a small sea snail to the most illustrious fabrics used by emperors, kings and priests. 

The production of purple dye is associated mainly with the Phoenicians, a Canaanite people that inhabited the coastline stretching from northern present-day Israel to Lebanon and Syria. Phoenician cities along the Mediterranean—most notably Tyre and Sidon—served as extensive purple production centers and were a source of wealth and cultural prosperity. Textiles dyed in red-purple (argaman) and blue-purple (tekhelet) were highly sought after by rulers and kings throughout the ancient East and Mediterranean basin. While empires rose and fell in the course of history—Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, Rome—they all shared the same passion for purple as a symbol of status and prestige. In Biblical times and during the eras of the first and second Temples, tekhelet, extracted from the same sea snails, had a great significance for the people of Israel, and it was used for coloring ritual items and for dyeing the tassels of the Tallit. 

The Haifa link: Tel Shikmona 

Numerous archaeological finds exposed in Tel Shikmona (Tell es-Samak, the “fish-mound”, as the Arab inhabitants of Haifa called it) indicate that the site was an important industrial center for producing argaman and tekhelet from shellfish. Dye traces on pottery vats and grindstones were found there on a scale unprecedented in the Mediterranean basin, indicating that for centuries, and mainly during the Iron Age, the site had been a center for purple dye manufacturing and for wool dyeing and spinning as well.  

This small site, situated not far from here, by the sea coast, became an international center for the production of purple, and a unique example of ancient industries relying on the sea.

Join us on our journey as we explore the secrets of the ancient dye.

Adi Shelach
Curator of the National Maritime Museum