How It's Used

"Shells made people rich. The Egyptians and Cretans invented royal Tyrian purple, a dye made from crushed and boiled shells of the murex, a snail, that caught on from its inception. Phoenician traders sold murex-dyed purple cloth to the Kings of Persia and Babylon. Then noble Greeks and Romans picked up purple, which is why we say 'born to the purple.' The Christian Church followed suit; purple is the official color for the vestments of cardinals."

—Wendy Moonan, "Seashells For Love And Money," The New York Times, April 24, 1998.

“AD 20—Pristinus, tunic-maker to Roman emperor Tiberius Caesar, is tasked with protecting the imperial purple robe from stains caused by seafood particles during the emperor’s prolonged feasts on the Isle of Capri.”

—Christopher Buckley, “The Origin and Development of the Lobster Bib: Volume II: Rome to the Present Era,” Forbes FYI, Summer 2000, p. 39.

“He thought himself emperor of all Romans, paying homage to one who founded the city where he ruled, Constantine. Only when surrounded by torches did he expose himself to the people, gowned in the royal purple of dead Caesars.”

—Evan S. Connell. Deus lo Volt!:  A Chronicle of the Crusades. (Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 2000), p. 21.

"The former BMW man Franz Tost seems to have calmed down since tearing into his American driver Scott Speed in 2007. Speed, who had everything but his name, said his year with the team was one long shouting match. The technical director, Giorgio Ascanelli, was race engineer to Ayrton Senna at McLaren, the equivalent of having touched the imperial purple, and has a wealth of experience, including a stint at Ferrari."

—no author listed, "Formula One 2009: Teams: Toro Rosso," The Guardian (UK), March 21, 2009.

"The seafaring Phoenicians left the world more than a legacy of alphabets and purple dye—they left their DNA scattered throughout Mediterranean men, as well, according to a report published on Thursday. As many as one in 17 men living in the Mediterranean region carries a Y-chromosome handed down from a male Phoenician ancestor, the team at National Geographic and IBM reported in the American Journal of Human Genetics...

"The Phoenicians, who thrived from 1500 BC to 300 BC, were headquartered in the coastal areas of present-day Lebanon and Syria. Demand for Tyrian Purple, a dye made from shell of the Murex sea snail, drove much of their trade."

—Maggie Fox, "Gene study shows the Phoenicians still with us," Reuters, October 30, 2008.

Also Known As (AKA)

Royal Purple, Tyrian Purple

Links

Related on eAlmanac
"Born to the Purple"
Purple Prose

Beyond eAlmanac
Wikipedia article on Tyrian Purple