Egyption Votive Textile depicting offerings to the cow goddess Hathor

“Votive” means something dedicated or offered to a deity, often in fulfillment of a vow or as an act of religious devotion. This painted linen textile, dating to approximately 1400–1350 BCE, depicts a family presenting offerings to the Egyptian cow goddess Hathor. Along its upper edge is a looped fringe containing cream, yellow, and blue threads, with additional blue threads running along the sides.

Modern chemical analysis found that the blue threads were dyed with shellfish dye derived from Hexaplex trunculus—the same species identified by many researchers with the chilazon of Techeiles. Significantly, the researchers describe the color as shellfish blue and sky-blue. The religious context is particularly important. Hathor was associated with the sky and with the color blue, and numerous votive objects from her shrine were either entirely blue or prominently decorated in blue. The researchers therefore point to this textile as evidence for the importance of sky-blue in the worship of Hathor.

This is relevant to the modern discussion over the precise color range of Techeiles. Some researchers and advocates favor shades tending toward bluish-purple, while Dr. Israel Ziderman has described the expected color as blue with a hint of violet. Those shades may very well represent authentic forms of Techeiles. The significance of this textile is that it shows they need not be the only historically plausible ones.

This Egyptian find provides direct archaeological evidence that Hexaplex trunculus was also used in antiquity to produce a distinctly blue dye, and that this blue was valued enough to be incorporated into a sacred votive textile. It therefore weakens any argument that a more purely blue Hexaplex dye would have been culturally implausible or insufficiently prestigious in the ancient world.

The point is not that Techeiles must have been one exact shade. Rather, the archaeological evidence suggests that shellfish blue could appear across a range—from blue with violet tones to a more distinctly blue color—and still belong to the same ancient dye tradition.

Bottom line: Ancient Egyptians were producing a distinctly blue dye from Hexaplex trunculus by the second millennium BCE and using it in a religious votive context. This does not rule out bluish-purple or blue-violet Techeiles; it shows that distinctly blue shellfish dye was also prized and sacred, and should not be excluded from the historical range of Techeiles simply because it is less purple.

Museum location: ROM (Royal Ontario Museum)