{"id":74429,"date":"2025-03-17T06:00:24","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T10:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblicalarchaeology.org\/?p=74429"},"modified":"2025-03-14T12:20:25","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T16:20:25","slug":"ancient-israels-tyrian-purple-factory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblicalarchaeology.org\/daily\/ancient-cultures\/ancient-israel\/ancient-israels-tyrian-purple-factory\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient Israel\u2019s Tyrian Purple Factory"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tyrian<\/a>

The site of Tel Shiqmona, a factory of Tyrian Purple. Courtesy Mayzenb<\/a>, CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>, via Wikimedia Commons. <\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Tyrian purple, tekhelet<\/em><\/a>, royal purple: All names for an incredibly expensive, ancient dye. While this dye is often associated with the Phoenician city-state of Tyre, located in modern-day southern Lebanon, one of the largest Iron Age II (c. 1000\u2013586 BCE) factories producing the substance may have been controlled not by the Phoenicians but by the Kingdom of Israel. Publishing the results of excavations from Tel Shiqmona in the journal Tel Aviv<\/a><\/em>, archaeologists from the University of Haifa suggest that during the ninth through eighth centuries BCE, the Kingdom of Israel controlled this important commodity.<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t

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FREE eBook: Life in the Ancient World<\/strong>. Craft centers in Jerusalem, family structure across Israel and ancient practices\u2014from dining to makeup\u2014through the Mediterranean world.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t