A 2,000 year old piece of fabric has been confirmed to contain remnants of a snail-based blue dye that is mentioned in the Bible.
The dye, called tekhelet, is derived from snail glands, and was traditionally used to color tassels (tzitzit) attached to a common male garment; tekhelet was also used to dye clothing worn by the High Priest at temple, Haaretz reported.
The Bible commands that Jewish men wear a blue fringe on their clothing, but the source of the color has been a mystery, the Associated Press reported.
The small piece of fabric was found in a cave by the dead sea in the 1950s; it is only the third sample of tekhelet ever discovered, Haaretz reported.
Doctor Na'ama Sukenik, a curator at the Israel Antiquities Authority, tested the material and found it was derived from Murex trunchular, a marine mollusk.
"This was an industry that was lost 1,300 years ago, so if we're going to find any remnants, they have to be at least 1,300-1,500 years old. The chances of finding them are [minuscule]," Baruch Sterman, a snail dying expert and author, told Haaretz. "Because the climate is so dry by the Dead Sea and because of the chemicals in the air there, you can find things older there than in other places."
Researchers are still not sure if the original tekhelet appeared to be a light sky-blue or a darker color closer to purple.
The strands of the fabric were spun in a way that was characteristic of ancient Israel; suggesting the dye and fabric were produced locally.
"I think this is a fascinating finding," Sterman said. "Here we have evidence that in Israel, in the second century, they had the technology to dye blue using murex, and there was an entire industry in Israel that had all this advanced technology."
