11th Archaeological Excavation Campaign begins at the Atlantic’s southernmost purple-dye workshop

The Fuerteventura Island Council and Tenerife Island Council are launching a new archaeological excavation campaign on Islote de Lobos, running from 25 October to 10 November 2026. The interdisciplinary team will focus its work on the Lobos 5 area, near La Calera beach, where it will investigate a possible processing area and a lime kiln associated with the production of the prized purple dye in Roman times.

The research forms part of the interdisciplinary project ‘Towards defining the Purpurariae Islands: from the Lobos 1 purple-dye workshop (Islote de Lobos, La Oliva, Fuerteventura). Archaeological work on Islote de Lobos and its immediate territorial context’. It is being carried out under an institutional and scientific collaboration agreement between the island councils of Fuerteventura and Tenerife, through their respective archaeological museums, with support from the University of La Laguna and BinterCanarias.

New work in the Lobos 5 area

The 11th campaign will focus on the archaeological area known as Lobos 5 (L5), north-west of the well-known Lobos 1 workshop, near La Calera beach. This is a landscape of dunes and jable, where earlier surveys identified Roman and historical pottery fragments.

One of the main objectives will be to excavate a severely deteriorated, partially collapsed lime kiln. Lime played an important role in the Roman dye industry, as it was used as an alkaline agent to treat the hypobranchial glands of purple-producing molluscs, such as the cañaílla (Stramonita haemastoma). This process was essential to obtaining the purple pigment.

A key site for understanding the Roman presence in the Canary Islands

The archaeological site on Islote de Lobos, dated to between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, marked a significant advance in understanding the commercial and industrial links between Roman Hispania and the Canary Islands. Its discovery documented productive activity connected to the sea routes linking the archipelago with territories around the Bay of Cádiz and the Lower Guadalquivir.

Archaeological work has documented more than 200,000 Stramonita apices, dry-stone habitation structures, copper and iron tools, fine terra sigillata tableware, oil lamps and fragments of lead cauldrons used in the dye-making process. These finds point to a highly significant seasonal production centre, offering valuable insight into Roman economic activity in the Atlantic.

The purple dye obtained from these molluscs was highly prized in the Mediterranean world and was particularly associated with the clothing of the elite and the imperial family. Continued research on Islote de Lobos is deepening knowledge of this exceptional site and providing further insight into the relationship between the Canary Islands and the Roman world, as well as the archipelago’s ancient history.