When his lover saw the purple stains on the dog’s mouth, she requested a garment of the same color. Shortly thereafter, Melqart arrived for a rendezvous with his lover, with his dog in tow. Melqart, thinking his dog was bleeding, inspected the canine’s mouth, only to find that it was stained purple. Melqart’s dog, one day, while walking along the beach with its divine owner, had stopped to chew on a murex sea snail that had washed up on the shore, hence staining its mouth with the purple hue. The story of the discovery of Tyrian purple was first related by Julius Pollux, a Greek grammarian and Sophist from the 2nd century CE. The message, however, is the same, via The Eclectic Light CompanyĪccording to legend, the city of Tyre, from where Tyrian purple came, was founded by the Phoenician deity Melqart, also known as Heracles of Tyre (later becoming adopted into the Greek and Roman pantheon as the famous Heracles/Hercules of Greek myth). The sea snail is erroneously depicted as a conical nautilus shell instead a prickly and pointy murex one.
The Discovery of Tyrian Purple A small wood panel painting by Peter Paul Rubens of Melqart (Hercules) and his dog discovering the murex hue c. As such, production facilities were historically right next to where the creature was harvested. Timing is also a huge issue, as the dye begins to degrade as soon as the snail is out of the water. There are biochemical, enzymatic, and photochemical reactions that take place within the process as well as reduction and oxidation processes. It is a difficult process that requires much knowledge of the biological systems at work. Hexaplex trunculus, the banded dye-murex, via inaturalist.nzĪnother factor in the variation of Tyrian purple color is the minor differences in the process of extracting the dye. A blue dye color known as tekhelet also traditionally comes from this species, and was an important color for dyeing tzitzit (fringes/tassels) on tallits (prayer shawls) used in Jewish religious practice. The banded dye-murex is found today in the western Mediterranean and was used by Phoenician colonies there to create an indigo-colored dye. Various other similar sea snails are also used, but dye production from them is less common and a more recent development as opposed to the traditional murex dye production which dates back to roughly 4,000 years ago.Įach species generates a mucus from which the dye is extracted, and each species yields a variation in color. The dye is found in the hydrobranchial gland of a number of predatory sea snails such as the spiny dye-murex ( Bolinus brandaris), the banded dye-murex ( Hexaplex trunculus) and the red-mouthed rock shell ( Stramonita haemostoma). The Biological Source Bolinus brandaris, the spiny dye-murex, via Odyssey Traveller
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