Tyrian purple

"Royal purple" redirects here. For other uses, see Royal Purple (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Byzantium (colour), a modern colour.
For chemistry of Tyrian purple, see 6,6'-Dibromoindigo.

Tyrian purple (Ancient Greek: πορφύρα porphúra; Latin: purpura), also known as royal purple, imperial purple, imperial dye, or simply tyrian, is a reddish-purple natural dye. It is secreted by several species of predatory sea snails in the family Muricidae, rock snails originally known by the name Murex (Bolinus brandaris, Hexaplex trunculus and Stramonita haemastoma). The coloured compound is 6,6'-dibromoindigo.

The name Tyrian refers to the city of Tyre in ancient Phoenicia (modern-day Lebanon). In ancient times, extracting this dye involved tens of thousands of snails and substantial labour, and as a result, the dye was highly valued.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.