Purple
THE COLOR PURPLE
Purple, a color closely associated with violet, refers to the many various colors with hue between red and blue. A significant symbol of royalty and leadership, the original purple dye trade was centered in the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre in modern day Lebanon. Harvested from a rare species of sea snail, dye-makers had to crack open the snail’s shell, extract a purple-producing mucus and expose it to sunlight for a precise amount of time. It took as many as 250,000 mollusks to yield just one ounce of usable dye. The result was a vibrant and long-lasting shade of purple beloved by emperors and kings.
