It is a secretion produced by several species of predatory sea snails in the family muricidae rock snails originally known by the name murex.
How did pphoenicians make awnings of purple.
Its difficulty of manufacture striking purple to red colour range and resistance to fading made clothing dyed using tyrian purple highly desirable and expensive.
The main chemical is 6.
The name tyrian refers to tyre lebanon.
The surprising role of the color purple in history as early as 3000 years ago the ancient phoenicians made three major discoveries.
The phoenicians were famous throughout the mediterranean for their red purple dyes extracted from a rare spiky.
The main natural resources of the phoenician cities in the eastern mediterranean were the prized cedars of lebanon and murex shells used to make the purple dye.
Phoenician artisans were skilled in wood ivory and metalworking as well as textile production.
They gave us the alphabet we are using today.
In ancient times extracting this dye involved tens of thousands of snails and substantial labor and as a result the dye was highly valued.
Department of ancient near eastern art.
Tyrian purple aka royal purple or imperial purple is a dye extracted from the murex shellfish which was first produced by the phoenician city of tyre in the bronze age.
The phoenicians 1500 300 b c the main natural resources of the phoenician cities in the eastern mediterranean were the prized cedars of lebanon and murex shells used to make the purple dye.