![]() Later he identified another species with the name Kermes bytinskii ( Sternlicht 1969). Sternlicht (1961) suggested in his dissertation a new method for classifying coccoids, and he illustrated three kermes species found in Israel: Kermes biblicus = Kermes palestinensis, K. This created a great deal of confusion, because these coccoids were illustrated in different ways and had two different names.Īs a result, six species appeared in the literature, whereas only three species actually existed. Balachowsky (1953) illustrated those species and renamed them in his research on kermes species of the Mediterranean. The first scientific research on coccoid scales in Israel was done by Bodenheimer, who described three kermes species that grew on different species of oak ( Bodenheimer 1924, 1931). One of the latest instances of the use of shani dye in ancient Israel is from the end of the second temple period, when, in the wake of the destruction of the temple, the Jewish sages decreed customs of national mourning and forbade guests at marriage ceremonies from wearing crowns made of shani or gold threads, as had been popular until then ( Zuckermandel 1970). The famous historian Flavius Josephus noted that the shani dye symbolized fire, one of the four basic elements of the world ( Flavius Josephus 1966). ![]() Shani was used in the Holy Land during the biblical period both for secular purposes (such as coloring expensive weavings) and for ritual purposes (for instance, for the purification of lepers and as a component of red cow ash-from the burnt offering of a red heifer-which was also used for purification ). The scarlet dye is mentioned in the Old Testament 25 times, either alone or along with other precious and expensive pigments, including the blue and purple dyes obtained from marine snails (e.g., in the book of Exodus and the second book of Samuel, 1:24). In that document, dated to the 14th or 15th century BC, there is mention of a Phoenician trader who introduced to the palace in that area many precious products, among them a woolen fabric colored with tekhelet (blue), argaman (purple), and “red which was produced from worms” ( Pfeiffer and Speiser 1936). The most ancient text that mentions the shani worm was discovered in Nuzi, Iraq. However, we present evidence based on chemical analysis that Kermes echinatus (Coccoidea), a parasite of the Kermes oak ( Quercus calliprinos), was the source of the shani dye used toward the end of second temple period (AD 70). Therefore, it has been assumed that in ancient times the dye was produced from the “Armenian red” ( Porphyrophora hameli) or from Kermococcus vermilis (also called Kermes vermilis Donkin 1977, Sandberg 1997), and it was concluded that the dye must have been imported. Until the present study, however, knowledge regarding the coccoid species used in the Holy Land in ancient times had been lost, and no scarlet dye–producing coccoid scale from Israeli oak trees had been found ( Forbes 1964, Zeiderman 1986, Koren 1993). Whereas for other Jewish rituals it was explicitly written that goods such as sheep, corn, and oil were brought from Israel, it is not clear from which mountains the “worm of the shani” was obtained: was it brought from Israel or from abroad?Īccording to the writings of Roman authors of the period (e.g., Dioscorides, Plinius) and later texts, there is no doubt that the scarlet dye was produced from a species of coccoid scale ( Donkin 1977) living on oaks. According to a source from the same period, only the best shani dye product should be used, and it should come “from the worm in the mountain area” ( Zuckermandel 1970). This dye was widely used for religious rituals in the second temple until the temple's destruction in AD 70 ( Feliks 1966). The scarlet dye-known as shani in Hebrew-was used in the Holy Land during the biblical period. The most ancient finding of this dye was in woven fibers found in a burial cave dating from the late Neolithic age in Adaouste, in southern France, where these coccoid scales grow on oak trees ( Barber 1992). One of the known dyes of the ancient world was the scarlet dye produced from coccoid scale insects ( Forbes 1964, Koren 1993). The use of natural colors for dyeing precious and sacred fabrics occupied an important place in ancient cultures, including those of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome.
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