An Israeli researcher says she has identified a nearly 2,000-year old textile that may contain a mysterious blue dye described in the Bible, one of the few remnants of the ancient color ever found.
Naama Sukenik of Israel’s Antiquities Authority said Tuesday that recent examination of a small woolen textile discovered in the 1950s found that the textile was colored with a dye from the Murex trunculus, a snail researchers believe was the source of the Biblical blue.
Researchers and rabbis have long searched for the enigmatic color, called tekhelet in Hebrew. The Bible commands Jews to wear a blue fringe on their garments, but the dye was lost in antiquity.
Sukenik examined the textile for a doctorate at Bar-Ilan University and published the finding at a Jerusalem conference Monday.
(AP)
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16 Responses
Impressive but I would like to know how the dye was identified as coming from that snail species.
so what… With out a missorah this means nothing
This is not the long-sought after T’cheiles, as has been proved many times.
This snail does not appear and disappear in nature at regular intervals, similar to the Talmudic “once in 70 years” description and is not rare, although very little dye can be extracted from each snail. In fact, though they are an endangered species in Israel, they live in large quantities in the Mediterranean Sea off the Spanish coast and are eaten there as a delicacy.
There shell does not have the right colour either.
And they are a snail, not a fish. Although modern science defines snails as fish, the Talmud has a word for “snail”, yet calls the “chilazon” a “dag”, fish.
If Ms. Sukenik would research further, she will realize that the dye on her fabric is chemically identical to plant-indigo. Thus, the investigative tests that the Talmud suggests be performed to differentiate between “Tcheiles”-dyed fabric and indigo-dyed fabric will result in the Murex-dyed fabric declared a fake, even if the dye comes from the sea.
This is even if we didn’t know how to accurately perform the tests. However, these tests have been attempted and it is found that Murex-dyed Tcheiles fabric does fade, as the Talmud predicts will occur if indigo is used.
So, nice try, but no cigar.
Dear rainus. What did tcheiles ever do to you?
Why are you so against it as to make sweeping, across the board statements that are not factually based. You first state that it is not rare but the amount needed to make enough for a pair of tzitzis is very expensive making it rare in the sense that it is not readily available. You then say that it is not the right color…well then, what is? You then say that chilazon doesnt mean snail but in chumash, rashi does say that chilazon means snail. You then say that if she would test it then she would see that its indigo…again, do you think that she didnt test it? And last but most important i have been at many different tests done on the murex tcheiles (including those mentioned in the gemarah) and it has not failed any so where did you get your information?!
One of the things my wife taught me about marriage is that you can’t bring archeology into it. Meaning that you can’t be dredging up things of the past and expect it to work out. I think the same applies to our Marriage to Hashem through Torah. Archeology will never take the place of a good blat Gemara, etc., that Judaism of our time actually needs.
Why would anyone color a fabric with techeles? Tcheles is needed for tzitzis and not the beged.
If anything, it’s probably kola ilan which is discussed in the gemora which is not kosher for techeles.
The poskim have established only 3 requirements for determining true techeles:
1. It must come from a chilazon.
Rashi, Maharil, Bach, Maharshal, Malbim, Targum Yonason, Ritva and many others translate chilazon as snail. The word chilazon also means snail in many mid-eastern languages such as Farsi, Arabic, Assyrian and Syriac.
2. It must produce a blue color.
Cloth dyed with murex trunculus and then exposed to sunlight turns a bright, sky-blue color that is indistinguishable from indigo (klai ilan), consistent with the Gemara’s statements.
3. It must remain strong and not fade.
Experiments have shown that murex-dyed cloth retained its blue color even after being soaked in bleach for 3 days.
Rav Chaim Yisroel Belsky, Rav Zalman Nechemia Goldberg, Rav Shmuel Nadel, Rav Herschel Schachter, Rav Mordchai Avrohom Katz and Rav Amram Oppman, among many other poskim, have endorsed murex techeiles and wear it on their tzitzis.
This is a mitvas aseh m’doraiso, so it should be worn even if there were deemed to be a safek…since we always follow the more stringent path when there is doubt regarding a biblically commanded mitzvah….particularly when there is no down-side. ie, if murex turns out not to be techeiles, it is no worse than wearing white tzitzis.
for more info go to the library on tekhelet.com
It’s possible that the Techeilet was from Murex trunculus, but we can’t say from this random cloth fragment.
The only way to know is if we found a tsitsit string with the Techailet, and then test it.
#2- Chill, it’s scientific research – not a psak halacha. In fact, the researcher is not making any positive claim that this is the tchelet that was used in tzitzit (the fabric that was found was not a ptil of tzitzit). She is not even making a positive claim that it belonged to a Jewish male. What the research does however show is that: (1) a piece of fabric from the time of the mishna that was found in E”Y was dyed blue with the use of dye from the Murex trunculus, and (2) there is a high probability that the fabric was manufactured in E”Y. Any possible halachic ramifications of such a find are outside the purview of the research.
In response to Bad-Chrady-Jew:
A mesorah is generally not required in halachah when we seek to determine the identity of a particular term or object.
Some examples:
The identity of the non-kosher birds mentioned in the Torah were established by the Ramban and other rishonim based on signs given in the Talmud, rather than a mesorah
The identity of the shekel needed for pidyon haben was determined by the Ramban based on inspection of an ancient coin found in Eretz Yisroel, without a mesorah.
The Vilna Gaon determined the identity of erez to be rice rather than milet based on experimentation rather than a mesorah….and this is deemed dispositive in many areas of halachah including brachos and chametz on Pesach.
The Maharil states that techeiles can be re-established using the signs provided by the gemorah
The Bais HaLevi, who opposed Radziner techeiles, stated that if the chilazon were to be found and there was a reasonable explanation for why it had fallen into disuse in the past, we would be required to use it on our tzitzis. (Since it is well documented that when the Jews were exiled to Babylon they lost access to the hilazon which comes from the Mediteranean Sea and that various monarchs decreed it a capital offense for a commoner to wear techeiles, we now have a very plausible explanation for the disappearance of murex techeiles.)
For more information see the sefer Livush He’Aron by R’ Mayer Halevy Helman who can be reached at [email protected]
or try the extensive on-line library at tekhelet.com
Rainus is correct, although I don’t know of any attempted test that have failed, and I would like citations on that.
The dye of the Murex Trunculus at the stage that it turns blue has the same chemical structure as indigo so it stands to reason that any chemical test on the two would produce the same results.
Murex Trunculus is argomon and is a purple die unless exposed to the sun until it turns blue. Rashi in the beginning of Eilu Metsios says that argomon is common, so how could the blue die from the same source be rare?
It’s amazing to me how people who know so little are against things that are so much bigger than them.
Your rebbe doesn’t wear Techelet? So don’t – good for you. Mine does? So let me be.
There are dozens of Poskim who have actually taken from their precious time and spent the necessary time to learn the facts BEFORE throwing out a “tradition” excuse for not wearing Techelet.
Its amusing to hear ignoramouses and amatuers debate this topic. HarryKlari, however, is one of the few in the know. But you’re wasting your time on this forum.
#10 – HarryKlari
What is the plausible explanation for the murex for the disappearance? Yes, dyeing with murex was banned (not blue, just purple – but murex blue would have been hard to do if banned for purple). But what about the 800 years after the Romans that murex dyeing continued? It was done until the mid 1400s. If it is so easy to make blue from murex (leave in the sun when dyeing), surely it was known during this long time when it wasn’t banned? Murex dyeing was even done in Egypt while the Rambam lived there. Seems the Beis Halevi’s objection applies as well to murex, and perhaps even more so. At least Radzyn can claim the process was lost at some point. With murex, the process was known to the world for hundreds of years after techeiles stopped being made.
And the library at tekhelet.com is extensive, but still somewhat selective. They leave off key publications damaging to their cause.
14: new methods for dying were discovered that obsoleted the use of the TM. Although the TM was used in later periods, the indigo blue was not known – the purple was. However, the key reason for the disappearance is the fact that the Byzantine Empire made it impossible to use. If you don’t want to wear it don’t. The mesorah thing… is an interpretation of the Bais Halevi’s opinion that some even question. But let’s accept that. Do you eat Turkey? The Turkey in Hebrew is called the Indian Tarnagol or Indian Chicken named after the native-americans who introduced it to the Europeans? How can you eat Turkey without a Mesorah? But I will take the advice of the one who said I am wasting my time on this forum. I
15: But the point I raised isn’t only about the Mesorah issue. The historical accounts of murex dyeing say nothing of blue dyeing. Of course, they wouldn’t have been interested in a more expensive substitute for plant indigo! But Ptil Tekhelet argues that dyeing blue from Murex had to be known because it was so easy to figure out -just dye outdoors in the sun. If so, why didn’t the Jews revive it? Murex dyeing wasn’t banned for large periods of time in places where Jews lived and near large Jewish communities, not just Europe, but Egyptian fisherman at the time of the Rambam. In fact, the Rambam refers to snail mucous in his version of either the chemical test for k’la ilan or the dye process for techeiles (don’t have it in front of me). He was aware of murex dyeing, but didn’t think it techeiles. These are issues of relevance to the murex debate that haven’t yet been resolved. Obviously the whole of the argument is beyond the scope of comments to this one post! This new finding is interesting, sicne it purports to show murex dyed blue in antiquity, though it is actually just traces of murex purple in the blue indigo which could be of plant origin – but due to the traces they are concluding it was all murex dye that was debrominated – purple removed).