Most ancient centers flexed their power with grand walls or temples. Tel Shiqmona did it with a stink.
Perched on a rocky stretch of Israel’s Mediterranean coast, this unassuming outcrop was once steeped in the pungent scent of crushed mollusks—day in, day out. Though Tel Shiqmona rarely gets a mention in ancient texts, new research suggests it was once the beating heart of one of antiquity’s most exclusive industries: royal purple dye.
A team of archaeologists led by Dr. Golan Shalvi and Prof. Ayelet Gilboa from the University of Haifa has uncovered the industrial remnants of this ancient craft. The team found a workshop that operated for half a millennium, from 1100 to 600 BCE.
Published in PLOS ONE, the study documents dye-splattered tools, deep-violet-stained pottery vats, and the oldest known large-scale production center of purple dye.
The Kingdom’s Hidden Hue
Luxury isn’t just about beauty. It’s also about scarcity, expertise, and endurance, and purple dye checks every box, says Golan Shalvi.
Its quality is high, it requires advanced knowledge to produce, and it relies on scarce resources. It doesn’t fade over time. The dye bonds chemically with the fabric, making it nearly impossible to remove, even with bleach. But to produce it, you need the glands of a mollusk called Hexaplex trunculus.
Workers first crushed the shellfish, then extracted the glands and prepared the dye through a process of fermentation and oxidation that reeked to high heaven. The dye chemically bonds with textiles, forming a color so permanent it survives today on pottery fragments—still vibrant after 2,700 years.
“Finding large quantities of these mollusks, extracting the glands with precision, and preparing the dye through complex redox chemical processes required tremendous effort and skill. As a result, only the elite could afford it, and it became a symbol of wealth, power, and sanctity—used by rulers, high priests, and for temple furnishings,” Shalvi tells ZME Science.
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Archaeologists suspected this site as a dye-producing workshop, but until now, the production installations had not been clearly identified. Now, the team reconstructed one complete vessel and demonstrated its use over the centuries. “We also identified similar vessels at other coastal sites, suggesting a shared industrial tradition,” Shalvi says.
“This is the first time that we have managed to reconstruct the form of the tools—big clay vats—used in the dyeing industry,” said Dr. Shalvi. “At some points, at least 16 vats were in simultaneous use. Shiqmona was an exceptionally large production center in its time.”
Each vat stood nearly a meter high and could hold up to 350 liters—large enough to dye whole fleeces. This was no artisanal operation; this was industrial.
A tough port, a tough job
Tel Shiqmona wasn’t really a convenient port. The reef-studded coast was treacherous for ships, but perfect for the mollusks that made the dye. That environment, coupled with the site’s strategic location between the Phoenician coast and the Israelite highlands, placed it at the intersection of cultural and political currents.
In the 9th century BCE, archaeologists believe the Kingdom of Israel—then under the expansionist Omride dynasty—took over the site. They replaced the earlier Phoenician village with a fortified industrial compound.
It must have been a pretty lucrative business.
In the ancient world, purple was not just beautiful—it was political. Purple dye was so luxurious that only the elites could afford. So much so that it became a symbol of wealth, power, and sanctity—used by rulers, high priests, and for temple furnishings.
Textiles dyed with purple were traded across the Levant, and possibly used in the Jerusalem Temple itself. In later Roman times, the symbolism became so potent that only emperors were permitted to wear purple. Even today, the color endures as a sign of royalty—the British Crown, for instance, is still trimmed in purple velvet.
But producing the dye wasn’t glamorous. “It would be an exaggeration to describe it as ‘a very purple place,’” says Shalvi. Instead, it must have been a very smelly place, with wool fleeces constantly drying outside. It was an industrial site, devoid of any beauty or elegance. When not producing purple dye, the site was also used for olive oil production and likely other crafts.
A layered past
The team traced Shiqmona’s story through ten Iron Age layers, spanning from about 1100 to 600 BCE. It reached its height between 790 and 740 BCE. The site even developed a shared ceramic tradition with other Israelite sites inland and along the coast, revealing economic and cultural exchanges that defied old labels of “Phoenician” or “Israelite.” The material culture of the shows elements of both Phoenician and Israelite material culture, a unique situation not observed at other sites, Dr. Shalvi notes.
After the Assyrian conquest in the late 8th century BCE, Shiqmona changed hands but continued its function—possibly under new management. Then, around 600 BCE, the dyeing stopped. The Babylonian invasions swept through the region, toppling Jerusalem, dismantling economies, and leaving Shiqmona abandoned.
What makes the site unique is that, despite these upheavals, it persisted for centuries as a specialized production center.
Tel Shiqmona is a multi-layered site, with each layer representing a different historical period and cultural context. Archaeologists examined the material culture of each layer, cross-referenced it with known historical background, and pieced back the site’s story based on the archaeological evidence. Today, Tel Shiqmona remains largely invisible—its name absent from ancient scrolls, its ruins overgrown. But its legacy is being rewritten in clay and pigment, one purple-stained shard at a time.