‘Archaeologists find evidence of ancient crimson’

    

Israel Antiquities Authority

The crimson fragments.

And now, I have sent a wise man, endowed with understanding, of my father Huram. The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a Tyrian man, who knew how to work with gold, with silver, with copper, with iron, with stones, with wood, with purple, with blue, and with fine linen and with crimson yarn …

II Chronicles 2:12-13

Adapted for use in the Master Mason Degree Lecture in many lodges

Here’s something you don’t see every day: The Israel Antiquities Authority announced Thursday the discovery of a tiny piece of ancient fabric exhibiting “scarlet worm.”

I don’t see anything on the IAA’s website explaining this, but The Times of Israel, among others, reports on the find. The following is copyright ©️ 2024 The Times of Israel.

Tiny 3,800-year old textile

found in Israel was dyed

with biblical ‘scarlet worm’

Israeli researchers have confirmed that a 3,800-year-old scarlet-red textile found in the Judean Desert in 2016 was dyed using a tiny insect referred to throughout ancient sources, according to an article published this week in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

The peer-reviewed study was a joint effort of Hebrew University, Bar-Ilan University and the Israel Antiquities Authority, researchers said in a press release. Archaeologists discovered the piece of textile, less than 2 centimeters (about a half-inch) across, in the so-called “Cave of Skulls” in the Tze’elim Stream near Masada, during a joint excavation to save heritage finds from antiquities theft in 2016.

IAA

The Cave of Skulls.

Researchers were struck by the textile’s dark-red color. Scientists carbon-dated the artifact to the Middle Bronze Age (20th-18th centuries BCE), and employed high-performance liquid chromatography—a technique used to identify the ingredients of mixed solutions—to trace the origin of the dye to a scale insect called Kermes vermilio. The crimson bug, found throughout the Mediterranean region but not in Israel itself, is probably the same “scarlet worm” (tola’at hashani) mentioned 25 times in the Bible, often next to mentions of blue (techelet) and purple (argaman), considered the most precious and prestigious colors in the ancient world.

IAA

The Scarlet Worm.

In the Bible, the Israelites are commanded to use the “scarlet worm” to dye the fabrics of the Tabernacle and the priestly garments. “In ancient times, the dye was produced from the female scale insect, which lives on the kermes oak tree (Quercus coccifera),” Na’ama Sukenik of the Israel Antiquities Authority explained in a press release.

“Collecting these kermes was done in a very short window of time—one month of the year, in the summer, after the female had laid her eggs but before they hatched—when the amount of dye was greatest,” Sukenik said.

Though references to dyes made from scale insects abound in ancient sources, very few textiles dyed with the creatures have been found that predate the Roman period. The tiny textile is the earliest evidence of the technique ever discovered, and “bridges the gap between written sources and the archaeological discoveries,” Sukenik said.

Read all about it here.

Lucky timing for this news. I was just preparing a Magpie post on the subject of the Auld Boy YouTube channel, where there is frequent and recent discussion of ancient purple, whether from Tyre or elsewhere. Click here.

     

‘Masonic relics discovered!’

    

That’s a little hyperbole. The “relics” are common items, but it is pretty cool that they were recovered yesterday from within a time capsule.

Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia has been undergoing a change recently as its statues memorializing Confederate generals are coming down. The largest Confederate statue in America, a Robert E. Lee atop a 20-foot pedestal, has been retired, leading to the discovery of two time capsules dating to October 27, 1887.

One of the boxes was found inside that mammoth stone plinth. It had been secreted therein by the laborers who erected the giant general. The other, which was opened and explored yesterday, was beneath the monument. It contained many items of local historical interest, including books and other artifacts of Virginia Freemasonry’s post-Civil War era.

Royal Arch Masons. (CBS News)

The truth is no Masonic historian deserving of the title would be at all surprised to find Masonic contributions to a time capsule from late nineteenth century Virginia, but it is comforting to know how the fraternity was so significant that this time capsule, which is smaller than a milk crate, would include multiple proofs that Hiram was there. More info here. (Of course, Richmond is home to Masons’ Hall, which already was more than a century old when this box was buried.)

Grand Lodge Book of Proceedings.
(CBS News)

There is a Grand Lodge Book of Proceedings. And a Grand Chapter of Royal Arch book. A small Templar pamphlet from Richmond Commandery 2 looks like a membership roster. (At that time, Richmond 2 met on fourth Tuesdays, and yesterday was the fourth Tuesday, although I doubt the Sir Knights met between Christmas and New Year’s.) Tucked inside this document is a KT calling card from Past Eminent Commander James Hamilton Capers, who would become R.E. Grand Commander in 1897. There also is a Grand Lodge certificate of some kind. And then there’s a palm-size Square and Compasses made of wood.

Knights Templar booklet, possibly a membership roster of Richmond Commandery 2. (CBS News)

The time capsule is made of copper. It was not watertight, so its contents today are waterlogged, but still in good shape it seems. The metal objects (coins, tokens, musket balls) will clean up well, but the organic (books, papers) items? We’ll have to see what the Virginia Department of Historic Resources can manage. Archaeological Conservator Katherine Ridgway said the contents are “more waterlogged than we had hoped, but not as bad as it could have been.”

A Grand Lodge certificate. (CBS News)

All in all, not a bad day for those of us who understand Freemasonry today by knowing its yesterdays.

Calling card of Sir Knight James Hamilton Capers, who would become R.E. Grand Commander in 1897. (CBS News)

CBS News covered the event yesterday and shares several videos of different lengths on YouTube from which I did my best to capture the photos shown here.

The copper capsule. (CBS News)

That two time capsules were embedded within and beneath the Lee colossus indicates to me that the people of Richmond anticipated their hero’s effigy falling one day, and I’d like to think they’d be delighted to know it survived well into the twenty-first century.

UPDATE: Courtesy of Bro. St. Ecker in Virginia, I can share this newspaper clipping. The W.B. Isaacs mentioned in the lede was Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge.

Click to enlarge.

     

‘Familiar looking coin found in Jerusalem’

    

Eliyahu Yanai/City of David

There is something going on lately with amateur archeologists unearthing ancient coins. It seems hardly a month passes without some guy with a metal detector finding a cache of Roman or Saxon or some other gold and silver in Britain. A few weeks ago, a child volunteering at a dig in Jerusalem brought to light a 2000-year-old shekel that should look familiar to Mark Master Masons.

Liel Krutokop, age 11, plunged her fingers into her very first bucket when a round object made itself conspicuous amid the dirt taken from the City of David area. It turned out to be a shekel of pure silver dating to 67 or 68 C.E.—The Great Revolt—when Judea was in rebellion against the Roman Empire.

Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia 

In Freemasonry, tokens closely resembling such ancient coins have a symbolic value in Mark Masonry. In the United States, they typically are called Chapter Pennies on account of their use in the Mark Master Mason Degree, which is conferred in Royal Arch chapters.

I’m assuming whoever lost this coin two millennia ago had some explaining to do when he got home.

Congratulations Miss Krutokop!

     

‘To work in the color purple’

     

Israel Antiquities Authority

“And now I have sent a cunning man, endued with understanding, of Hiram my father’s, the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre, skillful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson....”

2 Chronicles 2:13-14

A certain piece of cloth that is significant to Freemasons made the news last week. No, not some talk show host’s Prince Hall sweater. This is a scrap of fabric said to date to the Iron Age epoch the Hebrew Bible informs us was the time of David and Solomon.

Even without particular literacy in the Hebrew Bible, Freemasons will recognize the above verses from their ceremonies. Mention of a skilled workman, able to craft metal, stone, and wood is straightforward, but kudos to the Masons who wonder about the placement of colors on that resume, and extra credit to those who investigated it.

We today take our colors for granted. In paints and inks, and in dyes and food colorings, purple is made to appear all around us. In ancient times, however, things were extremely complicated.

Tyre, home of King Hiram, was famous in antiquity for several reasons, including its manufacture of purple and blue dyes. To produce a single ounce of the colorful substance, fishermen would draw from the Mediterranean thousands of a certain kind of snail. The mollusk contained a gland that secreted a substance that was found to have the potential for creating purple, red, and blue dyes. The process was extremely labor intensive and its chemistry required the use of urine. Between the gutted snails and the urine, sailors knew they were approaching Tyre just by the smell. I bet the guy who discovered that process had some funny stories. Anyway, the expense and scarcity of the coloring mandated its use be reserved for royal and priestly leadership.

Might this piece of fabric have been part of a garment worn by Solomon, King of Israel?

Read The Times of Israel here, and BBC Science Focus here.

     

‘From the clay grounds between Succoth and Zeredatha?’

     
I’m always happy to turn the discussion to pipe smoking. Part of the unsung work inherent in being the Magpie Mason is assisting archaeologists identify clay pipes from centuries ago that they unearth in their digs by decoding the Masonic symbols displayed on the clay. It’s not that this happens every day, but it’s often enough that I would remark on it.

Click to enlarge.

Clay itself figures prominently in Masonic symbolism. In the First Degree rituals in many (most?) lodges in the United States, clay—formerly called “earthen pan”—is grouped with chalk and charcoal as symbolic of the Entered Apprentice’s qualifications. Chalk is said to be the freest of substances, thanks to the ease with which it can leave a trace. Charcoal is dubbed the most fervent, because when ignited the most obdurate metals will yield. And clay is called the most zealous because it is constantly employed in man’s service, and also ever reminds us that from it we all came, and to it we must all return.

Clay also is discussed ritually in lodge when it is explained to the Apprentice how GMHA fabricated sacred vessels for the Temple, as well as the two pillars in the porch.

Because of the mouth-to-ear transmission of ritual from one Mason to another that prevailed for generations before the introduction of official ritual ciphers, errors and anomalies made their way into the work. If I remember correctly, the ritual in New Jersey requires that “clay” be misspoken, with a superfluous second syllable, as “clay-ay.” Thus, the line is delivered: “From the clay-ay grounds between Succoth and Zeredatha.” (Taken from 1 Kings 7: “In the plain of the Jordan did the king cast them, in the clay ground between Succoth and Zarethan.” The Zeredatha vs. Zarethan thing is a whole other story.)

Anyway, this is about pipe smoking. Clay pipes were the ubiquitous standard for several centuries before French villagers discovered the superiority of briar, and began making pipes of that lightweight but durable wood. We’ve all seen the woodcuts and paintings from the Netherlands, England, and elsewhere depicting people of all ages smoking their luxurious tobacco leaves in clay pipes of various lengths. The churchwarden had a length of 16 to 18 inches, ideal for sparing your fingers the dangerous heat of the bowl. Other pipes measured a more convenient seven or so inches. Communal pipes made available in public houses started out at about 18 inches, but had a short section of the stem amputated to afford the next user a relatively clean section to put into his mouth.

So the clay pipe artifacts brought to my attention in this case are shown here. This pipe bowl was found in St. Mary’s Church in Mold in North Wales during renovations. (Photos courtesy M. Jones.)

We can discern most of the Masonic symbolism, but between the condition of the pipe piece, and the quality of the photos, and the artistic license taken in the design, some of the designs leave one guessing.

Click to enlarge.

Here we’re looking at the pipe’s bowl from the rear. The stem is broken and gone, but we understand this is the view of the pipe the smoker would see while puffing away on his New World tobacco. No question about the compasses at top. Perhaps that is meant to be a square at bottom, or a second compass, the two tools forming a frame inside of which is the radiant sun.

Click to enlarge.

On this side is shown three towers, a trio very commonly seen in English and Scottish (and maybe other) Masonic crests. No doubt about the square below the castles. Below that, however, are a few items I cannot decipher.

Click to enlarge.

On this side we have the crescent moon with Pleiades at the top. A very common pairing seen on tracing boards and other art. Below them is what I’ll say is a level. Below that is something I cannot guess at.

On the front of the bowl (seen only in that group photo above) is something from the vegetable world. Not tobacco leaf, but what seems to me to be a sheaf of wheat.

And finally, here is a photo that depicts a similar clay pipe, shown on a page of Les Francs-Macons et la Mer de la Loge au Quai, published last year to accompany an exhibit at the Grand Orient of France’s museum, in which the Chancellor Robert R. Livingston Masonic Library provided some assistance.

     

‘Making old news new again’

    
Hebrew University archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel will hold a press conference Tuesday to “announce all-new findings related to the time of Kings David and Solomon, including presentation of artifacts never before seen by the public related to construction of Solomon’s temple and palace.” The press conference will be followed by a tour of the Khirbet Qeiyafa excavation site.

I know most Masons cannot see beyond the knife and fork, but you loyal Magpie readers are accustomed to making Freemasonry truly relevant in your lives by welcoming information from diverse sources, historical and contemporary. To that end, check out the following links to read articles from the field of Biblical archaeology, which has the potential to contextualize much of what we discuss in lodge.

The establishment of the Israelite monarchy?

A fortified city from David’s time?

Better yet, treat yourself to a subscription to Biblical Archaeology Review, always a source of sane discussion of rational ways to approach and better understand the Bible.