A long time ago, the early Phoenicians had made a purple dye called murex dye. The color purple used to be known to represent royalty. This invention of murex dye has furthered human progress by people still wear murex – dyed clothes.
Murex dye is a secretion produced by several species of predatory sea snails in the family Muricidae, rock snails originally known by the name ‘’Murex’’. In ancient times, attracting this dye involved tens of thousands of snails.
It was highly valued in their ages and it was extremely expensive and worth for. The people who wore purple were “rich” because of their clothes’ color.
Those citizens were a little more respected than others. The Ancient Phoenicians use to go underwater and literally collect the murex dye from murex snails.
10 – 12,000 murex was equal to one gram of dye. It was one of the very few colors of clothes. Purple used to represent royalty, so it was a very rich color.
Murex dye came from the oceans. The Phoenicians had sold murex dye to Other civilizations for high prices or expensive things. Pretty soon, murex dyed clothes were all around the world! Murex dye is still sold to make clothes purple.
My favorite color is now purple!
Some more Murex Snail Pictures:
I hope you enjoyed reading the short description of murex dye from murex snails!!!
Nice article. Good job.
Thanks, Aayush.
Very nice!
Very nice! Very interesting information.