Ancient Fact 9: Tyrian purple
[In ancient Rome, purple was the color of royalty, a designator of status. To make Tyrian purple, marine snails were collected by the thousands. They were then boiled for days in giant lead vats, producing a terrible odor. The snails, though, aren’t purple to begin with. The craftsmen were harvesting chemical precursors from the snails that, through heat and light, were transformed into the valuable dye.]
Whoa. I’m kind of impressed. Who would’ve thought to 1. collect marine snails and 2. persist through the terrible odor to produce purple dye? I think if anything this is an example of how creative people were back then. Anything for wealth/beauty I suppose.
Purple has always been my favorite color. And I find it very interesting that it was the color of royalty. The ancient peoples had good taste in color. It also makes me kind of sad that all of those snails had to die for the color purple.
