By Naama Sukenik

 

Clothing in ancient times was used for much more than protection from the elements. The garment was an important means of identification and social communication, and color played a vital role. The significance of color was reinforced during the Roman period when a strict dress code was upheld. But then, as now, a counterfeit industry developed alongside the legitimate industry.

In antiquity, various plants and animals were the sources of dyestuffs that could yield a wide spectrum of colors. While some were common and relatively inexpensive ingredients, others, especially those from animal sources, were considered more prestigious. The color and dyestuffs indicate technological abilities, patterns of daily life and fashion, trade and politics, as well as individual economic and social status.

In recent years, advanced analytical tools such as high-performance liquid chromatography have been used to identify the dyes in archaeological textiles. These have provided new insights about the phenomenon of counterfeiting dyes in the ancient textile industry.

Purple, produced primarily from three species of sea mollusks of the Muricidae family, was considered the most prestigious color in antiquity.

The main species of sea mollusks to produce the ‘true purple’ in the ancient times (from the right): Stramonita haemastoma, Hexaplex trunculus and Bolinus brandaris. (Photo: Shahar Cohen, courtesy of Prof. Zohar Amar)

 

The beautiful color produced by this dye, the fact that it does not fade, as well as the complex dyeing process which includes reduction and oxidation processes, made it desirable in the eyes of many and made it one of the most important means of identifying high rank in Roman society.

Although the use of murex mollusks for dye began in the Early Bronze Age, it appears that during the Hellenistic and Roman periods the popularity of purple dye grew as never before. This tendency became stronger after an edict was issued prohibiting the public from wearing purple, thereby making it exclusive to the Emperor and his family. This prohibition made purple dye even more popular among the public. According to the Edict of Maximum, in 301 CE the price of purple-dyed textiles could be as high as the price of gold. Frescoes, mosaic floors, and other discoveries from the Roman world also affirm that purple was the most popular color for decorative elements in clothing. The favorite colors in decorative textiles from the Roman period were shades ranging from intense purple to Bordeaux red, which indicate the popularity of purple hues.

Textile fragment with gamma shape colored in purple hue. Wool, Cave of Letters, Roman period. (Photo by Clara Amit, Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

 

But analyses of textile fragments from various sites in Israel, including the Cave of Letters, Masada, and the caves of Murabbaʿat in the Judean desert, as well as Ein Rachel and Moʼa in the Negev, have shown that in most cases the purple shade was not produced using murex snails. In most of cases, the color was obtained by double dyeing in different dye solutions derived from two plants that were common agricultural crops in the land of Israel. These are mentioned many times in Jewish sources: madder (Rubia tinctorum L.), whose roots are used to produce a red color, and woad (Isatis tinctoria L.), a plant containing indigotin that was used during the Roman period to obtain a blue color.

Roots of the dyer’s madder used to produce the red pigment. (Photo: Shahar Cohen, courtesy of Prof. Zohar Amar)

 

Wool fleeces dyed with Madder (R. tinctorum L.) roots, at different times of cooking and soaking. (Dyed by Naama Sukenik, Photo: Shahar Cohen, courtesy of Prof. Zohar Amar)

 

Wool fleeces dyed with woad, at different times of cooking and soaking. (Dyed by Naama Sukenik, Photo: Shahar Cohen, courtesy of Prof. Zohar Amar)

 

The double-dyeing technique requires great accuracy and prolongs the dyeing process, but it is still much easier and cheaper than dyeing with true purple. This phenomenon was found in many purple textiles, including the purple fleece that was found in the Cave of Letters.

The purple fleece made by double dyeing with madder and woad to imitate true purple. Cave of Letters, Israel, Roman period. (Photo by Clara Amit, Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

 

In most cases, the imitation dye was of such high quality that it was difficult to distinguish between textiles dyed in molluscan purple and those dyed with a much cheaper substitute—only advanced analytical methods enable identification.

Textile fragment with purple band dyed using vegetal woad and madder in a double dyeing method. Murabba’at cave, Roman period. (Photo by Clara Amit, Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

 

Only a small number of textiles have been found in Israel that were dyed with true purple. These textiles, discovered at Masada and the Murabbaʿat cave, indicate that the use of the true purple dye was still limited to individuals of high social standing, while the cheaper and more readily available substitutes were common among the general population.

Fragment of purple textile dyed with true purple produced from murex snail and cochineal insects. Wool, Murabba’at cave, Roman period. (Photo by Clara Amit, Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

 

The phenomenon of purple imitation is not limited only to the land of Israel but was prevalent throughout the Roman world and was found in places such as Palmyra and Dura Europos in Syria, Berenice in Egypt, and Khirbat Qazone in Jordan.

The double-dyeing technique that has been found in archaeological textiles to imitate the purple color was mentioned in the Stockholm Papyrus, dating from the 3rd century CE. This Egyptian papyrus contains 154 dye recipes, many of which are concerned with the production of purple dye counterfeits. The papyrus includes other methods, indicating that even in the purple dye counterfeiting industry, there were degrees of imitation. For example, the fake purple dye manufactured from lichen (Rocella tinctoria L.), which grew on the Canary Islands on cliffs near the sea, gives a beautiful color.

Wool dyed using Roccella tinctoria. (Dyed by Naama Sukenik. Photo: Shahar Cohen, courtesy of Prof. Zohar Amar)

 

Another recipe recorded in the Papyrus Holm includes double dying with the use of woad (Isatis tinctoria L.), which yields a blue color, and the Kermes insect, from whose body a valuable red dye can be extracted, as seen in fabrics found in Ein Racḥel.

Textile fragment with purple band made by double dyeing with kermes insects and indigo to imitate the ‘true purple’. (Photo by Clara Amit, Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

 

Other materials were derived from common plants such as alkanet (Alkanna tinctoria L.) and turnsole (Chrozophora tinctoria L.) (fig 11), which, in reconstructions of the dyeing process, produce a color that is less impressive and less resistant to washing and solar exposure.

Fruits of turnsole plant used to imitate the purple color. (Photo: Shahar Cohen, courtesy of Prof. Zohar Amar)

 

A similar phenomenon of counterfeiting dyes also arose regarding insect dyes, the next most prestigious dye source after true purple. This red-orange coloring, which is produced from the female kermes insect (Kermes vermilio), a scaled insect that breeds on the branches and leaves of certain oak trees from the coasts of Mediterranean and gives off a red-orange color. It is mentioned in the Bible many times along with purple and is known in Jewish sources as “tola’at shani” (scarlet dye).

Analysis of orange color textiles, including the skein wool from the Cave of the Letter, indicates that in most of the cases the orange hue was produced by double dyeing, using madder (Rubia tinctorum L.) and weld (Reseda luteola L.).

Skein of wool made by double dyeing with madder and weld to imitate the ‘tola’at shani’. (Photo by Clara Amit, Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

 

Like today’s fashion industry, where ‘knock offs’ and fakes abound, it seems that during the Roman period the demand for luxury hues was so great that counterfeit dyes were created from vegetable dyes. An industry of imitations of purple and scarlet dyes brought approximations of these prestige colors to the masses at a low cost.

 

Naama Sukenik is a curator of organic materials in the Israel Antiquities Authority.

 

For further reading:

Naama Sukenik. “A 2000 Year-Old Counterfeiting Industry,” in Oree Meiri, Yehuda Kaplan, and Yigal Bloch, Out of the Blue. Bible Land Museum: Jerusalem, pp. 100-118.