The Dyeing of Purple in Ancient Israel 27 



Exodus XXXV, 23 with v. 25). No account of the mode of dyeing 

 has been preserved by Jewish tradition in connection with 

 argaman. Tekelet, however, has fared better, though the 

 account given in the Talmud by R. Samuel bar Judah leaves 

 much to be desired. "Abayi" records the Talmud, said to 

 R. Samuel bar Judah, — "Now about this tekelet — how do you 

 dye if? " He said to him, " We take the blood of the hilazon 

 (i.e., the dye secretion of the tekelet species) and drugs 

 (Sanmanim), put them into a kettle, boil the mixture, and 

 then take out something of the liquid in an egg-shell, and test 

 the sample with a bit of soft wool.* We then throw away that 

 egg-shell and burn that sample of wool." No particulars are 

 given of the "drugs" employed together with the dye-secretion 

 of the tekelet species. Commentators differ. The Tosaphists, 

 the French school of Talmudial exegesis, remark that "it is very 

 strange that extraneous matter should have been mixed with the 

 tekelet dye," "but perhaps," they add, "it was the combination 

 of the tekelet pigment with these drugs that constituted the 

 tekelet dye." Rashi, the foremost commentator of the Talmud, 

 would seem to hold that the drugs in question were simply 

 mordants used for fixing the colour in the fibre, and had nothing 

 to do with the production of the colour itself. An earlier 

 authority, Samuel ben Hofni, principal of the Academy at Sura, 

 Babylonia (d. 1034) would seem to be of a contrary opinion. 

 In a treatise extant as a unique manuscript at the library of 

 Petrograd he asserts: — "the information has been handed down 

 to us that tekelet was dyed with the blood of an aguine (marine) 

 animal called hilazon mixed with another (substance)." This 

 rather gives the impression that the sanmanitn or drugs formed 

 an essential part of the dye, assisting in the production of the 

 requisite colour. Appearances in the Talmud, I feel, point in 

 the opposite direction. The absence of all specification of the 

 drugs in question, tends to indicate that the latter stuffs were 

 not essential to the production of the colour. 



* Cf . Pliny, IX, 38. ' 



