Faux Phoenician purple?

SARTORIAL ARCHAEOLOGY: A 2,000-Year-Old Fashion Fraud: Roman Textiles Imitated Royal Murex Purple (Leman Altuntaş, Arkeonews).

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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Miss Lebanon goes Phoenician

PHOENICIAN SARTORIAL WATCH: Miss Lebanon Nada Koussa Wows Miss Universe With A Traditional Lebanese Dress Celebrating Phoenician Heritage (Natalie Haddad, The 961).

At the Miss Universe preliminaries, Miss Lebanon Nada Koussa captivated the audience with a jaw-dropping display of heritage and elegance in a striking traditional Lebanese costume designed by the talented Joe Challita.

The stunning ensemble was an homage to Lebanon’s rich Phoenician legacy, bringing to life the ancient story of Tyrian purple – a color that once symbolized royalty and power.

The costume itself is inspired by (apparently 19th century) "traditional Lebanese dress wear," not ancient Phoenician attire, about which latter we know next to nothing. But it's made in honor of Tyrian purple, so I give Miss Lebanon and the dress designer, Joe Challita, full credit for effort.

Tyrian purple and the Israelite telekhet dye were both made from the murex snail. For many PaleoJudaica posts, see here and links.

Also, congratulations to Miss Denmark on winning this year's Miss Universe competition.

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A child's undergarment from the Cave of Letters

SARTORIAL MATERIAL CULTURE: 1,900-year-old Knot-Frilled Child’s Gown Discovered in Israel's Cave of Letters (Ashley Cowie, Ancient Origins).

The Cave of Letters in Israel has yielded many artifacts from the famous Bar Kokhba revolt, offering deep insights into Jewish history. Recently, a 1,900-year-old child's nightgown with intriguing "knots" was discovered, prompting speculation regarding their protective significance within ancient Jewish practices and beliefs.

[...]

The IAA Facebook post on which this article is based is only four days old, but I'm not sure how recent this discovery is. Another Ancient Origins article on the Cave of Letters from last November mentions the gown too: "There was a skeleton found covered in a colorful mat, as well as that of a child dressed in a tunic." It has a photo. It is the same garment, taken from a different angle.

In any case, it is good to have a more detailed discussion of it.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on the discoveries in the Cave of Letters, see the links collected here (plus here).

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Quick, Dress, Adornment, and the Body in the Hebrew Bible (OUP)

NEW BOOK FROM OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS:

Dress, Adornment, and the Body in the Hebrew Bible

Laura Quick

• Provides a comprehensive overview of the history of dress and adornment in biblical literature and the wider eastern Mediterranean, including an up-to-date treatment of the archaeological and epigraphic evidence
• Brings sociological and anthropological models into dialogue with philology and exegesis of ancient literary texts
• Offers fresh insights into the complex relationship between the body, the self, and the other in ancient Israel

Description

Dress, Adornment, and the Body in the Hebrew Bible is the first monograph to treat dress and adornment in biblical literature in the English language. It moves beyond a description of these aspects of ancient life to encompass notions of interpersonal relationships and personhood that underpin practices of dress and adornment. Laura Quick explores the ramifications of body adornment in the biblical world, informed by a methodologically plural approach incorporating material culture alongside philology, textual exegesis, comparative evidence, and sociological models.

Drawing upon and synthesizing insights from material culture and texts from across the eastern Mediterranean, the volume reconstructs the social meanings attached to the dressed body in biblical texts. It shows how body adornment can deepen understanding of attitudes towards the self in the ancient world. In Quick's reconstruction of ancient performances of the self, the body serves as the observed centre in which complex ideologies of identity, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and social status are articulated. The adornment of the body is thus an effective means of non-verbal communication, but one which at the same time is controlled by and dictated through normative social values. Exploring dress, adornment, and the body can therefore open up hitherto unexplored perspectives on these social values in the ancient world, an essential missing piece in understanding the social and cultural world which shaped the Hebrew Bible.

£75.00

Hardback
Published: 09 February 2021
256 Pages
234x156mm
ISBN: 9780198856818

I noted another recent book on related matters here. And a couple of PaleoJudaica posts on sartorial history and archaeology are here and here with links.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Solomonic-era purple cloth excavated in Timna Valley

SARTORIAL ARCHAEOLOGY: Ancient cloth with Bible’s purple dye found in Israel, dated to King David’s era. 3 scraps from 1,000 BCE, earliest such finds in region, point to Edomite kingdom described in Bible; vibrant and lasting ‘royal’ dye, mark of the elite, comes from murex sea snails (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

If you like technical things, the underlying article at Plos One is: Early evidence of royal purple dyed textile from Timna Valley (Israel).
Naama Sukenik , David Iluz, Zohar Amar, Alexander Varvak, Orit Shamir, Erez Ben-Yosef
Published: January 28, 2021https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245897

PaleoJudaica posts involving Tyrian purple dye are here, here, here, and here. And for the Israelite telekhet dye, also made from the murex snail, see here and links.

The Plos One article suggests that the fragments may have come from posh clothing. A couple of posts on clothing in ancient Israel are here and here. (Timna was Edomite, but the sartorial conventions would have been similar, at least to us.)

This discovery is further proof that delicate organic artifacts from as far back as the tenth century BCE can survive to the present in the right climate. The Timna Valley has the right climate. So does Megiddo.

Parchment and papyrus scrolls are delicate organic artifacts. If these cloth fragments can survive with their dye intact, I see no reasons why still-readable scroll fragments could not survive in the same environment. We would have to be lucky for them to survive and for us to find them. But the right conditions exist.

I have further thoughts on this point here and links and here (on the Timna Valley excavation) and here and here (on Megiddo).

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Finitsis (ed.), Dress and Clothing in the Hebrew Bible

RECENT BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:

Dress and Clothing in the Hebrew Bible
“For All Her Household Are Clothed in Crimson”

Editor(s): Antonios Finitsis

Published: 08-08-2019
Format: Hardback
Edition: 1st
Extent: 208
ISBN: 9780567686404
Imprint: T&T Clark
Series: The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies
Volume: 679
Illustrations: 8 bw illus
Dimensions: 6 1/8" x 9 1/4"
List price: $114.00
Online price: $79.80
Save $34.20 (30%)

About Dress and Clothing in the Hebrew Bible

Built upon the flourishing study of costume, this book analyses sartorial evidence provided both by texts of the ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible. The essays within lend clarity to the link between material and ideological, examining the tradition of dress, the different types of literature that reference the tradition of garments, and the people for whom such literature was written.

The contributors explore sources that illuminate the social, psychological, aesthetic, ideological and symbolic meanings of clothing. The topics covered range from the relationship between clothing, kingship and power, to the symbolic significance of the high priestly regalia and the concept of garments as deception and defiance, while also considering the tendency to omit or ignore descriptions of YHWH's clothing. Following a historical sequence, the essays cross-reference with each other to create a milestone in biblical sartorial study.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Sartorial news from ancient Israel

HAARETZ has a couple of recent articles on clothing and its coloring in ancient Israel. First: Pink wool to ponchos: What people in ancient Israel really wore. The man in the dusty street wore a tunic and sandals. The rich could dress so splendidly that they risked being struck down by divine anger (Miriam Feinberg Vamosh).

The wealthy could afford to expand the repertoire of colors in their closet from the earthy tones of the original sheep and goat coats to a rainbow of raiment.

The most costly dye was purple manufactured from the murex snail. But imitation purple for clothing could come from the hyacinth flower, for example. Textiles discovered at Masada included cream, pink and purple, and other colors mentioned in Roman sources include gold, walnut and yellow, all of which came from plants. Scarlet dye came from an insect, the kermes vermilio.

“Costly garments” (Ezekiel 16:10) are mentioned in the Bible – Queen Esther had one (Esther 5:1), and so did Tamar, Amnon’s ill-fated sister (2 Sam. 13:18). The noblewoman mother of the Canaanite general Sisera wore colorful embroidered garments (Judg. 5:30). A wedding dress, according to Psalm 45:13–14, was "embroidered with gold.”

The article is chronologically eclectic, combining information from the Bible, Josephus, the Mishnah, etc., with archaeological evidence from Masada and Qumran. And speaking of that dye from the murex snail ...

Second: Rare find || Fragment containing ancient 'tekhelet' dye discovered near Dead Sea. The precious blue dye, derived from snail glands, was used in ancient times to color the tassels of the four-cornered garment worn by men; this is only the third time such fabric has been found (Judy Maltz).

Announcing the discovery, Dr. Na'ama Sukenik, a curator at the Israel Antiquities Authority, said the tiny piece of fabric had been discovered in the 1950s in a cave at Wadi Murba’at, where Jewish fighters hid during the Bar Kokhba revolt in the second century. As part of her doctoral dissertation at Bar Ilan University, Sukenik recently tested the color found in the fabric and was able to determine that it was derived from the Murex trunchular, a mollusk widely believed to be the marine animal known as the khilazon in the Talmud -- the source of the rare blue dye.

More on the ancient tekhelet dye here and links. Also, lots more on ancient bling (mentioned in the first article) here and links and (sort of) here.