Shalvi Golan, Sukenik Naama, Waiman-Barak Paula, Dunseth Zachary C, Bar Shay, Pinsky Sonia, Iluz David, Amar Zohar, Gilboa Ayelet
Institute for the Study of Ancient Culture, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America.
School of Archaeology and Maritime Civilizations, Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
PLoS One. 2025 Apr 16;20(4):e0321082. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0321082. eCollection 2025.
Purple-dyed textiles, primarily woolen, were much sought after in the Ancient Near East and the Mediterranean, and they adorned the powerful and wealthy. It is commonly assumed that in antiquity, purple dye-extracted from specific species of marine mollusks-was produced in large quantities and in many places around the Mediterranean. But despite numerous archaeological excavations, direct and unequivocal evidence for locales of purple-dye production remains very limited in scope. Here we present Tel Shiqmona, a small archaeological tell on Israel's Carmel coast. It is the only site in the Near East or around the Mediterranean-indeed, in the entire world-where a sequence of purple-dye workshops has been excavated and which has clear evidence for large-scale, sustained manufacture of purple dye and dyeing in a specialized facility for half a millennium, during the Iron Age (ca. 1100-600 BCE). The number and diversity of artifacts related to purple dye manufacturing are unparalleled. The paper focuses on the various types of evidence related to purple dye production in their environmental and archaeological contexts. We utilize chemical, mineralogical and contextual analyses to connect several categories of finds, providing for the first time direct evidence of the instruments used in the purple-dye production process in the Iron Age Levant. The artifacts from Shiqmona also serve as a first benchmark for future identification of significant purple-dye production sites around the Mediterranean, especially in the Iron Age.
紫色纺织品，主要是羊毛质地的，在古代近东和地中海地区备受追捧，为权贵和富人所饰。人们通常认为，在古代，从特定种类的海洋软体动物中提取的紫色染料在地中海周围的许多地方大量生产。但是，尽管进行了大量考古发掘，紫色染料生产地点的直接明确证据范围仍然非常有限。在此，我们介绍以色列卡梅尔海岸的一个小型考古遗址特尔·希克莫纳。它是近东或地中海周边地区——实际上是全世界——唯一一个发掘出一系列紫色染料作坊的遗址，并且有明确证据表明在铁器时代（约公元前1100 - 600年）的半个千年里，这里在一个专门设施中大规模、持续地生产紫色染料并进行染色。与紫色染料制造相关的文物数量和种类无与伦比。本文重点关注在其环境和考古背景下与紫色染料生产相关的各类证据。我们利用化学、矿物学和背景分析来联系几类发现，首次提供了铁器时代黎凡特紫色染料生产过程中所使用工具的直接证据。来自希克莫纳的文物也为未来识别地中海周边尤其是铁器时代重要的紫色染料生产遗址提供了首个基准。
