Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) archaeologists announced that they found a once very valuable fragment of scarlet-colored textile in an Israeli cave, the Daily Mail reports.

It is estimated that the two-centimeter piece of cloth discovered in the Cave of the Skulls located in the Judean desert in 2016 was 3,800 years old.

The Scarlet or Crimson color, which is referenced 25 times in the Bible, was made from a worm-type bug found in oak trees, often referred to as the ‘Tola‛at Hashani’ or the Crimson worm.

The female worms and their eggs were collected, dried, and then ground down and used as the base for the dye. The carminic acid contained within the female bugs and their eggs produced a scarlet color.

According to the Jerusalem Post, the worms could only be collected for a brief period when their scarlet color peaked. This along with the intensive labor needed to create the dye made it extremely expensive, which is implied in a reference to the rich and famous or “Those who were raised in crimson clothing” found in Lamentations 4:5.

The scarlet dye was used to color the cloth needed in the construction of the Tabernacle of Moses and the garments for the High Priests (Exodus 26:1). The scarlet-dyed cloth was also one of the components of Red-heifer ash sacrifice for purifying the priests for service in the Jewish Tabernacle and Temple (Number 19:6) and as well in purification rites for those cleansed of leprosy (Leviticus 14:4–6).