This is the Murex, or shell fish, that the Phoenicians used to make the purple dye.
How did the Phoenicians make the purple dye and why purple?
The Phoenicians used a sea creature, a murex, to help create the purple dye. They caught it in the ocean using frogs and mussels as bait. When the murex were pulled from their shells, a pigment from their vein was collect to help make the dye. They mixed it with salt and heated it so the water would dissolve out of it. The murex usually ended up decaying, which meant a gross stench would fill the area.Then they would mix it with a reddish dye that was collected from a buccinum shellfish.
The Phoenicians used purple because it was the royal color in Ancient Roman Empire. Julius Ceasar and his wife, Cleopatra, used the color to decorate their furniture in their house. In the fifth century only emperors were allowed to wear the Tyrian purple, the death penalty was given if anyone else wore it. It was called Tyrian purple because the main region for it to be made was in the city of Tyre. In the third century only women were allowed to wear purple and also the high status people. Now, everyone is allowed to wear the color purple. When the purple is in the sunlight it actually gets darker instead of fading into a lighter color.
The color of the clothing back in Phoenician time was priced depending on what color it was. Tyrian purple was so expensive only kings could afford it. This dye was actually worth its weight in silver. It took about 12,000 snails to make 1.4 grams of the dye. The Emperors of Byzantium actually enforced a law that nobody, unless they were royalty, could wear the Tyrian purple. That is where the phrase, Born in the Purple, came from.