The Purple Story
The word Phoenician, actually is Greek for dealers in purple, based on the color of the dye that several Phoenician kingdoms, notably the kingdom of Tyre (in modern Lebanon), extracted from a type of shell fish known as Murex brandaris. Indeed, commonly, this dye was known as Tyrian purple.
Myth attributed the discovery of the purple god Melkart who is known by the Greeks under the name of Hercules. While he was walking on the beach with his beloved Tyros, his dog discovered one of the shells of Murex, bites it and his jaws colored purple which surprised the girl. She asked her lover to offer her a dress with the beauty of this color. So the lover collected an amount of Murex shells and made a purple dress out of them.
A lot of dyes were then discovered dating back to different periods. The text mentions the oldest colored discovered in Ras Chamra Ugarit back to about 1500 BC. History says that the Phoenicians kept the secret of the purple coloring and the private way to install the color on the fabric. Monopolizing the market, it has become a Phoenician industry by excellence and the purple color became a privilege color reserved only for the kings and great men.
