Reply To: Techeiles nowadays

Halevi: Yes, the way to remove the gland which contains the dye is by cracking the shell open with a hammer, and then cutting the hypobronchial (?) gland off.

as for the techeiles being green, rashi does say that it’s “yarok,” but in the gemara it is not uncommon for yarok to mean what we refer to as blue. also, the aruch translates kela ilan as indigo, and the gemara (i think in menachos) says that techeiles looks exactly like kela ilan.

regarding availability, it actually started becoming less and less available towards the 600-700’s c.e., and it was very rare in bavel hundreds of years before already.

Nothing lives in the dead sea, except a few micro-organisms. The dead sea can’t support life (hence the name). some meforshim take note of that, and interpret the rambam (yam hamelach) to mean the mediterranean.