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Rang

Birthplace of Tyrian purple

Tyre

The Phoenician port that gave its name to the costliest dye of the ancient world, made from sea snails.

Ancient columns lie in the submerged Egyptian harbour of Tyre/Sour, South Lebanon, with the skyline of the modern city in the background.
Photo: RomanDeckert, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Why Tyre is tyrian purple

Tyre, on the coast of what is now Lebanon, was a leading city of the Phoenicians. Its workshops made a purple dye from the glands of murex sea snails. Thousands of snails were needed for a small amount of dye, and the process smelled so bad that dye works stood on the edge of town. The colour, a deep reddish purple that did not fade, was worth more than gold by weight at times and became the mark of kings and Roman emperors. A Greek legend says the dye was found when the dog of the god Melqart bit a snail and stained its mouth. Ruins and the blue sea remain; the industry ended in the Middle Ages.

Tyrian purple#66023CSea blue#2F6F9ELimestone cream#E3D5B5Murex shell tan#C9A982

Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.

Colours tied to Tyre

Tyrian purpleA reddish-purple dye once worth its weight in silver, made from sea snailsPurpleA cool colour between red and blue, long linked with royalty and rarityTekheletA blue dye from sea snails, central to ancient Jewish ritual and tradition
About this page

Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Tyre, Lebanon" on Wikipedia. If you know Tyre and we have it wrong, tell us.

More colour cities

All colour cities
🇱🇧 City of the murex hillSidonA Phoenician port whose purple dye trade left behind a whole hill of crushed sea-snail shells.🇮🇳 The saffron town of KashmirPamporeFor a few weeks each autumn the fields near Srinagar turn purple with the crocus that gives saffron.🇻🇳 The purple imperial cityHueVietnam's last royal capital: a walled palace of red lacquer and yellow tiles, and a city fond of purple.🇺🇸 Purple, green and goldNew OrleansA city of brightly painted cottages and iron balconies, dressed in purple, green and gold each carnival.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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