Ancient textiles from the Judean Desert reveal that many Roman-era “purple” garments were not dyed with costly murex but with a clever blend of madder and woad, exposing a widespread fake-luxury industry 2,000 years ago.I'm not sure which specific textiles are involved. According to the IAA, "thousands of scraps of textiles dating from the Roman period" have been recovered in Israel. One such piece, discovered at Masada, is noted here. Another, discovered in the 1950s in a Wadi Murabba’at cave, is noted here. Both seem to have been dyed with genuine murex shell dye.[...]
Murex shell dye was used by the Phoenicians to make Tyrian purple, and also by the Israelites for the tekhelet dye. For many posts on the subject, start here and follow the links.
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