The samples originated from excavations at the extensive Iron Age copper smelting site of “Slaves’ Hill” (Site 34), which is tightly dated by radiocarbon to the late 11 th–early 10 th centuries BCE. Furthermore, by comparing the analytical results with those obtained in a series of controlled dyeing experiments we were able to shed more light on the specific species used in the dyeing process and glean insights into the ancient dyeing technology. Our identification is based on the presence of 6-monobromoindigotin and 6, 6-dibromoindigotin components (detected using HPLC analysis), which is considered unequivocal evidence for the use of murex-derived purple dyestuff. In the context of a broad study aimed at examining dyeing technologies in the Timna textiles collection, three samples of prestigious fibers dyed with murex sea snail were identified. Naama Sukenik, Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, # 1, ¤a * David Iluz, Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Writing – review & editing, 2, 3, ¤b Zohar Amar, Conceptualization, Data curation, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Writing – review & editing, 4, ¤c Alexander Varvak, Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing, 2, ¤b Orit Shamir, Conceptualization, Methodology, Resources, Writing – review & editing, 1, ¤a and Erez Ben-Yosef, Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing # 5, ¤d *

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