Posted on 06/17/2024 6:54:06 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
According to a statement released by PLOS, a purple dye workshop dated to the sixteenth-century B.C. has been discovered on the Greek island of Aegina by Lydia Berger of Paris Lodron University and her colleagues. The researchers identified the workshop through the purple pigment preserved on ceramics that may have served as dye containers; grinding stones; a waste pit; and the crushed shells of marine snails. Most of these shells came from the banded dye-murex species of Mediterranean snail. The bones of young mammals, including piglets and lambs, were also recovered at the site. The animals are thought to have been sacrificed as offerings to protect the production process. Continued examination of the workshop is expected to provide additional insight into the techniques used to manufacture the valuable purple dye. Read the original scholarly article about this research in PLOS ONE.
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...
View of Aegina Kolonna with (inset, left to right) a 16th-century drawing of a purple snail; Hexaplex trunculus; and a purple pigment sample. Aegina Kolonna excavation, Department of Classics, Paris Lodron University of Salzburg.S. Münster, Cosmographia, 1544; G. Forstenpointner; L. Berger
Those snails were of much greater importance once they came out of their shells.
This 2,000-year-old piece of wool dyed with murex-based blue was found in a cave on the western shore of the Dead Sea. It is one of the few surviving ancient textiles colored with the valuable hue.
[The Price of Purple | Sara Toth Stub | Letter From Israel | November/December 2020 | Archaeology Magazine]Courtesy Clara Amit, part of the collection of the Israel Antiquities Authority
Many Aegeans dyed to bring us this information.
The rest of the Murex keyword, sorted:
Not just Aegean, but many Geans.
How are or were those snails collected?
“Here…snail snail snail”
And then the French ate them...................
There’s a pic of a Roman example in the article linked here:
https://archaeology.org/issues/november-december-2020/letters-from/israel-purple-dye/
https://archaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Israel-Roman-Pool.jpg
Pretty stuff.
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