The Dye That Helped Create An Empire

The Phoenician empire thrived as one of the most influential and advanced civilizations in the Mediterranean during ancient times. Phoenician merchants participated in trade by exchanging cedarwood, olive oil, metals, ivory, and Phoenician purple dye, the most coveted of their wares. Also called Tyrian purple, the dye was popular until the days of the Roman empire, symbolising wealth, abundance, and royalty. The production of the dye took a lot of resources and manpower, as This City Knows details:

Production of fabric in antiquity demanded substantial labor, more so than other crafts. In the case of Phoenician purple, extracting this dye required tens of thousands of sea snails, called Murex initially. The process further demanded an army of laborers.

The biological pigment was extracted from the snail mucus. It was pretty difficult to acquire, but the end result was various shades of lasting colors that hardly ever fade but instead become brighter with wearing and exposure to elements.

The Phoenicians were generally secretive about their method of manufacture, however, some ancient sources such as the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder did account for it.

Pliny notes in his first century A.D. book Natural History that two types of sea snails, Murex trunculus and Murex brandaris, were used to extract raw muddy liquid the snails leeched from the mucus glands. The first type was used to make blue-purple dye known as royal blue, while the second gave the more distinctive Tyrian purple.