By: MEGAN TUCKER
Staff Writer
The color purple is a popular color nowadays, but way back when, it was a difficult dye to come across. The trade of purple dye was centered in the Phoenician city of Tyre (modern-day Lebanon). The color used came from a type of sea snail that was difficult to find and harvest. In order to obtain the dye, the snail’s shell had to be cracked to obtain a mucus. Once extracted, the mucus needed to be exposed to direct sunlight, and as many as 250,000 snails were required to make just one ounce of usable dye. Because of the intense amount of time, work, and resources that purple dye called for, it was oftentimes only available to the rich and wealthy.
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Sources: https://www.history.com/news/why-is-purple-considered-the-color-of-royalty