A 3,800-Year-Old Red Textile Dyed with Biblical Scarlet Discovered in the Judean Desert Caves
In the caves of the Judean desert, the earliest evidence of red-dyed textile using scale insects was revealed. According to a new joint study of the Israel Antiquities Authority, Bar-Ilan University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the color of the rare 3,800-year-old textile was produced from the oak scale insects, which the researchers identify with the biblical “Tola‛at Hashani”.
