Tyrian purple

Tyrian purple (Ancient Greek: πορφύρα porphúra; Latin: purpura), also known as Phoenician red, Phoenician purple, royal purple, imperial purple, or imperial dye, is a reddish-purple natural dye; the name Tyrian refers to Tyre, Lebanon. It is a secretion produced by several species of predatory sea snails in the family Muricidae, rock snails originally known by the name 'Murex'. In ancient times, extracting this dye involved tens of thousands of snails and substantial labor, and as a result, the dye was highly valued. The main chemical is '6,6′-dibromoindigo.

"Royal purple" redirects here. For other uses, see Royal Purple (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with byzantium (color), a modern colour.
Tyrian purple
 
    Colour coordinates
Hex triplet#66023C
sRGBB  (r, g, b)(102, 2, 60)
CMYKH   (c, m, y, k)(45, 100, 47, 42)
HSV       (h, s, v)(325°, 98%, 40[1]%)
Source"Green-Lion.net". Archived from the original on 2014-02-28.
ISCC–NBS descriptorVery deep red
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)
H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

Background

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 one of several species of Murex snail. Production of Tyrian Purple for use as a fabric dye began as early as 1200 BCE by the Phoenicians, and was continued by the Greeks and Romans until 1453 CE, with the fall of Constantinople.[2] The pigment was expensive and complex to produce, and items colored with it became associated with power and wealth. Greek historian Theopompus, writing in the 4th century BCE, reported that "purple for dyes fetched its weight in silver at Colophon [in Asia Minor]."[3]

Mineral pigments were also traded over long distances, often at great cost. The only way to achieve a deep rich blue was by using a semi-precious stone, lapis lazuli, to produce a pigment known as ultramarine. The best sources of lapis were in Asia, primarily in the Sar-i Sang mines of Afghanistan. As a result, the pigment was prohibitively expensive in Europe.[4] To have one's portrait commissioned and painted with ultramarine blue was considered a great luxury. Due to the cost, the patron was often forced to pay for the pigment personally. In turn, painters of these commissioned works were often subject to contracts that explicitly described the quantity of expensive pigments to be used, and on what portions of the painting.[5] Artists without wealthy patrons were forced to seek less expensive replacement pigments,[5] both mineral (azurite, smalt) and biological (indigo).

Tyrian purple may first have been used by the ancient Phoenicians as early as 1570 BC.[6][7] It has been suggested that the name Phoenicia itself means 'land of purple'.[8][9] 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.[10][7]

A twentieth-century depiction of a Roman triumph celebrated by Julius Caesar. Caesar, riding in the chariot, wears the solid Tyrian purple toga picta. In the foreground, two Roman magistrates are identified by their toga praetexta, white with a stripe of Tyrian purple.

Because it was extremely difficult to make, Tyrian purple was expensive: the 4th century BCE historian Theopompus reported, "Purple for dyes fetched its weight in silver at Colophon" in Asia Minor.[11] 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 with a stripe of Tyrian purple. The even more sumptuous toga picta, solid Tyrian purple with a gold stripe, was worn by generals celebrating a Roman triumph.[7]

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.[7] 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.[12] Later (9th century)[13] a child born to a reigning emperor was said to be porphyrogenitos, "born in the purple".[lower-alpha 1]

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.[14]

Production from sea snails
Fabrics dyed purple from different species of sea snail

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. 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,[15][16] 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.

Two shells of Bolinus brandaris, the spiny dye-murex, a source of the dye

In nature the snails use the secretion as part of their predatory behaviour in order to sedate prey and as an antimicrobial lining on egg masses.[17][lower-alpha 2] 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 labour-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 g of pure dye, enough to colour only the trim of a single garment."[18]

Many other species worldwide within the family Muricidae, for example Plicopurpura pansa,[19] from the tropical eastern Pacific, and Plicopurpura patula[20] from the Caribbean zone of the western Atlantic, can also produce a similar substance (which turns into an enduring purple dye when exposed to sunlight) and this ability has sometimes also been historically exploited by local inhabitants in the areas where these snails occur. (Some other predatory gastropods, such as some wentletraps in the family Epitoniidae, seem to also produce a similar substance, although this has not been studied or exploited commercially.) The dog whelk Nucella lapillus, from the North Atlantic, can also be used to produce red-purple and violet dyes.[21]

Royal blue

The Phoenicians also made a deep blue-colored dye, sometimes referred to as royal blue or hyacinth purple, which was made from a closely related species of marine snail.[22]

Byzantine Emperor Justinian I clad in Tyrian purple, 6th-century mosaic at Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy

The Phoenicians established an ancillary production facility on the Iles Purpuraires at Mogador, in Morocco.[23] The sea snail harvested at this western Moroccan dye production facility was Hexaplex trunculus also known by the older name Murex trunculus.[24]

This second species of dye murex is found today on the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of Europe and Africa (Spain and Portugal, Morocco, and the Canary Islands).[16]

History

The colour-fast (non-fading) dye was an item of luxury trade, prized by Romans, who used it to colour ceremonial robes. Used as a dye, the color shifts from blue (peak absorption at 590 nm, which is yellow-orange) to reddish-purple (peak absorption at 520 nm, which is green).[25] It is believed that the intensity of the purple hue improved rather than faded as the dyed cloth aged. Vitruvius mentions the production of Tyrian purple from shellfish.[26] In his History of Animals, Aristotle described the shellfish from which Tyrian purple was obtained and the process of extracting the tissue that produced the dye.[27] Pliny the Elder described the production of Tyrian purple in his Natural History:[28][lower-alpha 3]

The most favourable season for taking these [shellfish] is after the rising of the Dog-star, or else before spring; for when they have once discharged their waxy secretion, their juices have no consistency: this, however, is a fact unknown in the dyers' workshops, although it is a point of primary importance. After it is taken, the vein [i.e. hypobranchial gland] is extracted, which we have previously spoken of, to which it is requisite to add salt, a sextarius [about 20 fl. oz.] to every hundred pounds of juice. It is sufficient to leave them to steep for a period of three days, and no more, for the fresher they are, the greater virtue there is in the liquor. It is then set to boil in vessels of tin [or lead], and every hundred amphorae ought to be boiled down to five hundred pounds of dye, by the application of a moderate heat; for which purpose the vessel is placed at the end of a long funnel, which communicates with the furnace; while thus boiling, the liquor is skimmed from time to time, and with it the flesh, which necessarily adheres to the veins. About the tenth day, generally, the whole contents of the cauldron are in a liquefied state, upon which a fleece, from which the grease has been cleansed, is plunged into it by way of making trial; but until such time as the colour is found to satisfy the wishes of those preparing it, the liquor is still kept on the boil. The tint that inclines to red is looked upon as inferior to that which is of a blackish hue. The wool is left to lie in soak for five hours, and then, after carding it, it is thrown in again, until it has fully imbibed the colour.

Archaeological data from Tyre indicate that the snails were collected in large vats and left to decompose. This produced a hideous stench that was actually mentioned by ancient authors. Not much is known about the subsequent steps, and the actual ancient method for mass-producing the two murex dyes has not yet been successfully reconstructed; this special "blackish clotted blood" colour, which was prized above all others, is believed to be achieved by double-dipping the cloth, once in the indigo dye of H. trunculus and once in the purple-red dye of B. brandaris.[10][22]

The Discovery of Purple by Hercules's Dog by Theodoor van Thulden, c. 1636

The Roman mythographer Julius Pollux, writing in the 2nd century CE, asserted (Onomasticon I, 45–49) that the purple dye was first discovered by the philosopher Heracles of Tyre, or rather, by his dog, whose mouth was stained purple from chewing on snails along the coast at Tyre. This story was depicted by Peter Paul Rubens in his painting Hercules' Dog Discovers Purple Dye. According to John Malalas, the incident happened during the reign of the legendary King Phoenix of Tyre, the eponymous progenitor of the Phoenicians, and therefore he was the first ruler to wear Tyrian purple and legislate on its use.[29]

Recently, the archaeological discovery of substantial numbers of Murex shells on Crete suggests that the Minoans may have pioneered the extraction of Imperial purple centuries before the Tyrians. Dating from collocated pottery suggests the dye may have been produced during the Middle Minoan period in the 20th–18th century BCE.[30][31] Accumulations of crushed murex shells from a hut at the site of Coppa Nevigata in southern Italy may indicate production of purple dye there from at least the 18th century BCE.[32]

The production of Murex purple for the Byzantine court came to an abrupt end with the sack of Constantinople in 1204, the critical episode of the Fourth Crusade. David Jacoby concludes that "no Byzantine emperor nor any Latin ruler in former Byzantine territories could muster the financial resources required for the pursuit of murex purple production. On the other hand, murex fishing and dyeing with genuine purple are attested for Egypt in the tenth to 13th centuries."[33] By contrast, Jacoby finds that there are no mentions of purple fishing or dyeing, nor trade in the colorant in any Western source, even in the Frankish Levant. The European West turned instead to vermilion provided by the insect Kermes vermilio, known as grana, or crimson.

In 1909, Harvard anthropologist Zelia Nuttall compiled an intensive comparative study on the historical production of the purple dye produced from the carnivorous murex snail, source of the royal purple dye valued higher than gold in the ancient Near East and ancient Mexico. Not only did the people of ancient Mexico use the same methods of production as the Phoenicians, they also valued murex-dyed cloth above all others, as it appeared in codices as the attire of nobility. "Nuttall noted that the Mexican murex-dyed cloth bore a "disagreeable … strong fishy smell, which appears to be as lasting as the color itself."[34] Likewise, the ancient Egyptian Papyrus of Anastasi laments: "The hands of the dyer reek like rotting fish ..."[35] So pervasive was this stench that the Talmud specifically granted women the right to divorce any husband who became a dyer after marriage.[36]

Murex purple production in North Africa

Murex purple was a very important industry in many Phoenician colonies and Carthage was no exception. Traces of this once very lucrative industry are still visible in many Punic sites such as Kerkouane, Zouchis, Djerba and even in Carthage itself. According to Pliny, Meninx (today's Djerba) produced the best purple in Africa which was also ranked second only after Tyre's. It was found also at Essaouira (Morocco). The Royal purple or Imperial purple[37] was probably used until the time of Augustine of Hippo (354–430 CE) and before the demise of the Roman Empire.

Dye chemistry
The chemical structure of 6,6′-dibromoindigo, the main component of Tyrian purple
A space-filling model of 6,6′-dibromoindigo, based on the crystal structure

The main chemical constituent of the Tyrian dye was discovered by Paul Friedländer in 1909 to be 6,6′-dibromoindigo, derivative of indigo dye that had previously been synthesized in 1903.[38][39] Unlike indigo, it has never been synthesized commercially.[40][41] An efficient protocol for laboratory synthesis of dibromoindigo was developed in 2010.[42]

Variations in colors of "Tyrian purple" from different snails is related to indigo dye (blue) or 6-bromoindigo (purple) being present in addition to the red 6,6′-dibromoindigo. Additional changes in color can be induced by debromination from light exposure (as is the case for Tekhelet) or by heat processing.[43]

In 1998, by means of a lengthy trial and error process, an English engineer named John Edmonds rediscovered a process for dyeing with Tyrian purple.[44][45] He researched recipes and observations of dyers from the 15th century to the 18th century and explored the biotechnology process behind woad fermentation. After collaborating with a chemist, Edmonds hypothesized that an alkaline fermenting vat was necessary. He studied an incomplete ancient recipe for Tyrian purple recorded by Pliny the Elder. By altering the percentage of sea salt in the dye vat and adding potash, he was able to successfully dye wool a deep purple colour.[46]

Recent research in organic electronics has shown that Tyrian purple is an ambipolar organic semiconductor. Transistors and circuits based on this material can be produced from sublimed thin-films of the dye. The good semiconducting properties of the dye originate from strong intermolecular hydrogen bonding that reinforces pi stacking necessary for transport.[47]

Modern hue rendering

True Tyrian purple, like most high-chroma pigments, cannot be accurately rendered on a standard RGB computer monitor. Ancient reports are also not entirely consistent, but these swatches give a rough indication of the likely range in which it appeared:

_________
_________

The lower one is the sRGB colour #990024, intended for viewing on an output device with a gamma of 2.2 . It is a representation of RHS colour code 66A,[48] which has been equated to "Tyrian red",[49] a term which is often used as a synonym for Tyrian purple.

Philately

The colour name "Tyrian plum" is popularly given to a British postage stamp that was prepared, but never released to the public, shortly before the death of King Edward VII in 1910.[50]

  • Cuneiform tablet, dated 600–500 BCE, with instructions for dyeing wool purple and blue. Ref.BM62788 .
  • Painting of a man wearing an all-purple toga picta, from an Etruscan tomb (about 350 BCE).
  • Roman men wearing togae praetextae with reddish-purple stripes during a religious procession (1st century BCE).
  • The Empress Theodora, the wife of the Emperor Justinian, dressed in Tyrian purple. (6th century).
  • A medieval depiction of the coronation of the Emperor Charlemagne in 800 CE. The bishops and cardinals wear Tyrian purple, and the Pope wears white.
  • A fragment of the shroud in which the Emperor Charlemagne was buried in 814 CE. It was made of gold and Tyrian purple from Constantinople.
  • Hercules' Dog Discovers Purple Dye by Peter Paul Rubens (1636), Musée Bonnat
  • 6,6'-dibromoindigo, the major component of Tyrian purple
gollark: CB golden wyvern!
gollark: I currently have hatchling *and* egg space, too.
gollark: I can somehow get stupid amounts of random stuff just browsing the AP (a gold) and cave (a leetle tree, CB nebula), and trade for xenowyrms, but never actually catch them.
gollark: Five hundred years' time, yes.
gollark: Gold eggs should be rescaled such that they cover the entire page.

See also

Notes
  1. It is also possible that the term porphyrogenitos may refer to the purple-red rock known as porphyry that walled the imperial birthing apartment.
  2. Because of research by Benkendorff et al. (1999), the Tyrian purple precursor tyrindoleninone is being investigated as a potential antimicrobial agent with uses against multidrug resistant bacteria.
  3. The problem with Tyrian purple is that the precursor reacts very quickly with air and light to form an insoluble dye. (Hence Pliny says: "... when [the shellfish] have once discharged their waxy secretion, their juices have no consistency. ...") The cumbersome process that Pliny describes is necessary to reverse the oxidation and to restore the water-soluble precursor so that large masses of wool can be dyed. See: Biggam, Carole P. (2006). "Knowledge of whelk dyes and pigments in Anglo-Saxon England". Anglo-Saxon England. 35. pages 23–56; see especially pages 26–27. doi:10.1017/S0263675106000032. ISBN 9780521883429. See also: C. J. Cooksey (2001) "Tyrian purple: 6,6’-Dibromoindigo and Related Compounds," Molecules, 6 (9) : 736–769, especially page 761. Indigo, which is chemically very similar to Tyrian purple, behaves similarly. See: http://www.indigopage.com/chemistry.htm

References
  1. "Color Conversion Tool set to colour #66023C (Tyrian purple)". Forret.
  2. Kassinger, Ruth G. (6 February 2003). Dyes: From Sea Snails to Synthetics. 21st century. ISBN 0-7613-2112-8.
  3. Theopompus, cited by Athenaeus [12.526] in c. 200 BCE; according to Gulick, Charles Barton. (1941). Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
  4. St. Clair 2016, p. 182-183.
  5. St. Clair 2016, p. 23.
  6. McGovern, P. E. and Michel, R. H.; Royal Purple dye: tracing the chemical origins of the industry, Anal. Chem. 1985, 57, 1514A-1522A
  7. St. Clair, Kassia (2016). The Secret Lives of Colour. London: John Murray. p. 162–164. ISBN 9781473630819. OCLC 936144129.
  8. Cunliffe, Barry (2008). Europe between the Oceans: 9000 BC-AD 1000. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. p. 241.
  9. "Phoenician". Online Etymology Dictionary.
  10. "Pigments: Causes of Color". WebExhibits.org. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  11. Theopompus, cited by Athenaeus (12:526) around 200 BCE; according to Athenaeus (1941). The Deipnosophists. Translated by Gulick, Charles Barton. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  12. Jacoby, David (1997). "Silk in Western Byzantium before the Fourth Crusade". Trade, Commodities, and Shipping in the Medieval Mediterranean. pp. 455 ff and notes [17]–[19].
  13. "Porphyrogennetos". The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. New York, NY & Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 1991. p. 1701. ISBN 0-195-04652-8.
  14. Elsner, O. (1992). "Solution of the enigmas of dyeing with Tyrian purple and the Biblical tekhelet". Dyes in History and Archaeology. 10. pages 14 ff.
  15. Ziderman, I.I. (1986). "Purple dye made from shellfish in antiquity". Review of Progress in Coloration. 16: 46–52. doi:10.1111/j.1478-4408.1986.tb03743.x.
  16. Radwin, G. E.; D'Attilio, A. (1986). Murex shells of the world. An illustrated guide to the Muricidae. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. p. 93. 284 pp incl 192 figs. & 32 pls.
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  20. Plicopurpura patula was originally named Buccinum patulum by Linnaeus in 1758: The genus Plicopurpura was created in 1903 by Cossmann:
  21. Biggam, Carole P. (March 2006). "Whelks and purple dye in Anglo-Saxon England" (PDF). The Archaeo+Malacology Group Newsletter. Glasgow, Scotland, UK: Department of English Language, University of Glasgow (9).
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  24. In 1758, Linnaeus classified the snail as Murex trunculus: In 1810, the English naturalist George Perry created the genus Hexaplex:
  25. Cooksey, Christopher J. (2001). "Tyrian purple: 6,6'-dibromoindigo and related compounds". Molecules. 6 (9): 736–769. doi:10.3390/60900736.
  26. Vitruvius. De Architectura [On Architecture]. Book VII, Chapter 13.
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  29. John Malalas, Chronographia II:9.
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  32. Cazzella, Alberto; Moscoloni, Maurizio (1998). "Coppa Nevigata: un insediamento fortificato dell'eta del Bronzo". In Troccoli, Luciana Drago (ed.). Scavi e ricerche archeologiche dell'Università di Roma La Sapienza. pp. 178–179. ISBN 9788882650155.
  33. Jacoby (2004), p. 210.
  34. Nutall, Zelia (1909). "A curious survival in Mexico of the use of the Purpura shell-fish for dyeing". In Boas, F. (ed.). Anthropological Essays Presented to Fredrick Ward Putnam in Honor of his Seventieth Birthday, by his Friends and Associates. New York, New York: G. E. Strechert & Co. p. 370.
  35. Robinson, Stuart (1969). A History of Dyed Textiles. London, UK: Studio Vista. p. 24.
  36. Compton, Stephen (2010). Exodus Lost (1st ed.). Booksurge Publishing. pp. 29–33. ISBN 9781439276839.
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  38. Friedlaender, P. (1909). "Zur Kenntnis des Farbstoffes des antiken Purpurs aus Murex brandaris" [Towards understanding the ancient purple dye from Murex brandaris]. Monatshefte für Chemie. 30 (3): 247–253. doi:10.1007/BF01519682.
  39. Sachs, Franz; Kempf, Richard (1903). "Über p-Halogen-o-nitrobenzaldehyde". Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft. 36 (3): 3299–3303. doi:10.1002/cber.190303603113.
  40. "Indigo". Encyclopædia Britannica. V (15th ed.). Chicago, IL: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 1981. p. 338. ISBN 0-85229-378-X.
  41. Cooksey, C.J. (2001). "Tyrian purple: 6,6'-dibromoindigo and related compounds" (PDF). Molecules. 6 (9): 736–769. doi:10.3390/60900736.
  42. Wolk, Joel L; Frimer, Aryeh A (2010-08-15). "A Simple, Safe and Efficient Synthesis of Tyrian Purple (6,6′-Dibromoindigo)". Molecules. 15 (8): 5561–80. doi:10.3390/molecules15085561. PMC 6257764. PMID 20714313.
  43. Ramig, Keith; Lavinda, Olga; Szalda, David J.; Mironova, Irina; Karimi, Sasan; Pozzi, Federica; Shah, Nilam; Samson, Jacopo; Ajiki, Hiroko; Massa, Lou; Mantzouris, Dimitrios; Karapanagiotis, Ioannis; Cooksey, Christopher (June 2015). "The nature of thermochromic effects in dyeings with indigo, 6-bromoindigo, and 6,6′-dibromoindigo, components of Tyrian purple". Dyes and Pigments. 117: 37–48. doi:10.1016/j.dyepig.2015.01.025.
  44. Edmonds, John (2000). Tyrian or Imperial Purple: The Mystery of Imperial Purple Dyes. Historic Dye Series, no. 7. Little Chalfont, Buckinghamshire, England: John Edwards. ISBN 9780953413362. OCLC 45315310.
  45. "Author Profile". Imperial-Purple.com. Archived from the original on 13 July 2011. Retrieved 13 July 2011.
  46. Chenciner, Robert (2000). Madder Red: A history of luxury and trade: plant dyes and pigments in world commerce and art. Richmond: Curzon Press. p. 295.
  47. Głowacki, E.D.; et al. (2011). "Ambipolar organic field effect transistors and inverters with the natural material Tyrian purple". AIP Advances. 1 (4). 042132. Bibcode:2011AIPA....1d2132G. doi:10.1063/1.3660358.
  48. "RHS, UCL and RGB Colors, gamma = 1.4, fan 2". Azalea Society of America. Archived from the original on 11 March 2007. Retrieved 15 July 2006. (this gives the RGB value #b80049, which has been converted to #990024 for the sRGB gamma of 2.2)
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  50. "Edward VII 2d". Postal Museum. Collection catalog.
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