Archaeologists in Israel have discovered small fragments of preserved purple fabric. Carbon dating places its creation around 1000 B.C. Purple is a color that has long been associated with royalty and is mentioned in the Jewish and Christian Bibles.
It takes an expert eye to decipher old and damaged manuscripts, but even that is not enough sometimes. Recently, multispectral technology has aided researchers of the Dead Sea Scrolls to read ink invisible to the naked eye and pinpoint previously unknown texts.
One of the concerns was why would Mesha call the enemy by this term “House of David” when he could simply refer to the proper noun Omri, King of Israel?
