The Dyeing of Purple in Ancient Israel 23 



Wherever argaman occurs in the Bible it is rendered by Tvopcfivpa 

 or one of its derivatives ; and -n-opcjivpa without a qualifying 

 epithet means, of course, purple dyed with the pigment of sea- 

 snails. Tekelet is rendered in the Septuagint by vaKtvdos, a 

 designation which does not necessarily imply that the dye is 

 of molluscan origin. Philo and Josephus, moreover, while 

 expressly mentioning the conchylian origin of the dyestuiT used 

 for argaman, are silent in regard to the source of the ])igmeiit 

 producing tekelet. Talmudic tradition, however, fills the gap. 

 A Talmudic text, going back in all probability to a time when 

 the Second Temple was still in existence, dispels all doubt on 

 the matter by declaring that tekelet used for ritual purposes 

 must be of conchylian origin. The Talmud, moreover, contains 

 a description of the species used for dyeing tekelet, and also 

 an account of the actual process of dyeing tekelet for the 

 " fringes " (Numbers xv). 



The exact determination of the species used in ancient 

 Israel for the dyeing of tekelet and argaman, and particularly 

 the former, is a task fraught with almost insuperable difficulties. 

 Various suggestions have been made, but it has fallen to the lot 

 of Dr. Alexander Dedekind, keeper of the Museum of Egyptian 

 Antiquities in Vienna, to press Lacaze-Duthiers' far-reaching 

 results into the service of Semitic archaiology. He maintains 

 that Lacaze-Duthiers' researches have once for all furnished the 

 clue to the identification of tekelet and argaman respectively. 

 In the fourth book of his Beitrage zur Purpurkunde (p. 226) he 

 gives the following classification : — 



Purpura lapillus ( belong to the tekelet variety 



Murex erinaceus ^ of purple, i.e., violet or blue 



Miirex truncnliis I purple. 



Murex brandaris f ^^^^°"° ^°*^.^ argamanv^viety 



n 7 4 "I of purple, i.e., red or scarlet 



Pui'pura luemastoma 



^ purple. 



He regards Murex trimculus as the tekelet species, but also 



names M. erinaceus as a possible identification, though in view 



