Tyrian purple (Ancient Greek: πορφύρα porphúra; Latin: purpura), also known as royal purple, imperial purple, imperial dye, or simply tyrian, is a reddish-purple natural dye. It is secreted by several species of predatory sea snails in the family Muricidae, rock snails originally known by the name murex (Bolinus brandaris, Hexaplex trunculus and Stramonita haemastoma). The coloured compound is 6,6'-dibromoindigo. The name Tyrian refers to the city of Tyre in ancient Phoenicia (modern-day Lebanon). In ancient times, extracting this dye involved tens of thousands of snails and substantial labour, and as a result the dye was costly to use and conferred a high social value on those whose clothing bore its color.
History
Biological pigments were often difficult to acquire, and the details of their production were kept secret by the manufacturers. Tyrian purple is a pigment made from the mucus of several species of murex snail. Production of Tyrian purple for use as a fabric dye began as early as 1200 BC by the Phoenicians, and was continued by the Greeks and Romans until 1453 AD, with the fall of Constantinople. In the same way as the modern-day Latin alphabet of Phoenician origin, Phoenician purple pigment was spread through the unique Phoenician trading empire. The pigment was expensive and time-consuming to produce, and items coloured with it became associated with power and wealth. This popular idea of purple being elite contributes to the modern day widespread belief that purple is a "royal colour". The colour of textiles from this period provides insight into socio-cultural relationships within ancient societies, in addition to providing insights on technological achievements, fashion, social stratification, agriculture and trade connections. Despite their value to archaeological research, textiles are quite rare in the archaeological record. Like any perishable organic material, they are usually subject to rapid decomposition and their preservation over millennia requires exacting conditions to prevent destruction by microorganisms. Tyrian purple may first have been used by the ancient Phoenicians as early as 1570 BC. It has been suggested that the name Phoenicia itself means 'land of purple'. The dye was greatly prized in antiquity because the colour did not easily fade, but instead became brighter with weathering and sunlight. It came in various shades, the most prized being that of black-tinted clotted blood. Because it was extremely tedious to make, Tyrian purple was expensive: the 4th century BC historian Theopompus reported, "Purple for dyes fetched its weight in silver at Colophon" in Asia Minor. The expense meant that purple-dyed textiles became status symbols, whose use was restricted by sumptuary laws. The most senior Roman magistrates wore a toga praetexta, a white toga edged in Tyrian purple. The even more sumptuous toga picta, solid Tyrian purple with gold thread edging, was worn by generals celebrating a Roman triumph. By the fourth century AD, sumptuary laws in Rome had been tightened so much that only the Roman emperor was permitted to wear Tyrian purple. As a result, 'purple' is sometimes used as a metonym for the office (e.g. the phrase 'donned the purple' means 'became emperor'). The production of Tyrian purple was tightly controlled in the succeeding Byzantine Empire and subsidized by the imperial court, which restricted its use for the colouring of imperial silks. Later (9th century), a child born to a reigning emperor was said to be porphyrogenitos, "born in the purple". Some speculate that the dye extracted from the Bolinus brandaris is known as argaman (ארגמן) in Biblical Hebrew. Another dye extracted from a related sea snail, Hexaplex trunculus, produced a blue colour after light exposure which could be the one known as tekhelet (תְּכֵלֶת), used in garments worn for ritual purposes.
Production from sea snails
The dye substance is a mucous secretion from the hypobranchial gland of one of several species of medium-sized predatory sea snails that are found in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and off the Atlantic coast of Morocco. These are the marine gastropods Bolinus brandaris the spiny dye-murex (originally known as Murex brandaris Linnaeus, 1758), the banded dye-murex Hexaplex trunculus, the rock-shell Stramonita haemastoma, and less commonly a number of other species such as Bolinus cornutus. The dye is an organic compound of bromine (i.e., an organobromine compound), a class of compounds often found in algae and in some other sea life, but much more rarely found in the biology of land animals. This dye is in contrast to the imitation purple that was commonly produced using cheaper materials than the dyes from the sea snail. In nature, the snails use the secretion as part of their predatory behaviour to sedate prey and as an antimicrobial lining on egg masses. The snail also secretes this substance when it is attacked by predators, or physically antagonized by humans (e.g., poked). Therefore, the dye can be collected either by "milking" the snails, which is more labor-intensive but is a renewable resource, or by collecting and destructively crushing the snails. David Jacoby remarks that "twelve thousand snails of Murex brandaris yield no more than 1.4 grams (22 grains) of pure dye, enough to colour only the trim of a single garment." The dye is collected via the snail-harvesting process, involving the extraction of the hypobranchial gland (located under the mollusk's mantle). This requires advanced knowledge of biology. Murex-based dyeing must take place close to the site from which the snails originate, because the freshness of the material has a significant effect on the results, the colours yielded based on the long process of biochemical, enzymatic and photochemical reactions, and requires reduction and oxidation processes that probably took several days.
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