[292] “Purpura” is supposed to mean crimson velvet. It came, like “cramoisi,” to be a name for a tissue. Fr. Michell quotes velvet of Vermeil-cramoisi, “violet and blue cramoisi, and pourpre of divers colours,” but he says he never met with “pourpre blanche.” Yule, ed. 1875, i. p. 67. Plano Carpini (p. 755) says the courtiers of Karakorum were clad in “white purpura;” and that on the first day of the great festival in honour of the inauguration of Kuyuk Khan, all the Mogul nobles were clad in pourpre blanche, the second day in ruby purple, and the third in blue purple: on the fourth day they appeared in Baudichin (cloth of gold). (Yule, “Marco Polo,” vol. i. p. 376.) White purple is also named in the inventories of Sta. Maria Maggiore at Rome, and those of Notre Dame in Paris. “Histoire du Tissu Ancien, à l’Exposition de l’Union Générale des Arts Décoratifs.”
[293] François Le Normant, in his “Grande Grèce,” tells of the dye of the purple of Tarentum from the murex, found in the Mare Piccolo. He says that Tarentine muslins, woven from the filaments of the pinna dipped in the dye of the murex, rivalled those of Cos. Le Normant laments the total neglect of the murex in these days (could its trade be revived?) Plutarch says that Alexander the Great, having made himself master of Susa (Shushan), found, amongst other riches of marvellous value, “purple of Hermione” worth forty thousand talents (Quintus Curtius says fifty thousand), which, though it had been stored 190 years, retained all its freshness and beauty. See Plutarch’s “Lives,” edited by J. and W. Langhorne, vol. ii. p. 739; Blümner, i. p. 224-240. The reason assigned for their dye being so perfect was that the Susanians knew how to comb the wool to be dipped, and prepare it with honey. According to Aristotle the dress of Alcisthenes, the Sybarite, was dyed with this purple from Shushan (Ciampini, Vet. Mon.).
[294] Semper gives us an account of iodine colours. Some, he says, were extracted from sea-weeds, green and yellow; the purples, when finest, from the shell-fish. The Phœnician coasts gave the best purples; those of the Atlantic the best blacks and browns. And thus he completes the scale of iodine colours. See Semper, “Der Stil,” i. p. 206.
[295] Heaps of the shells of this “murex trunculus” have been found at Pompeii, near the dyers’ works. Hardouin says that in his time they were found at Otranto, and similar remains have been noticed at Sidon. Sir James Lacaita informs me that the living shells are still found along the shores of the Adriatic, as well as on the wash near Argos. No doubt the Phœnicians traded first in the produce of the Sidonian and Tyrian coasts, though they afterwards went farther afield in collecting their dyes. Auberville says that the purple of the Romans was a deep violet (double dyed, purpuræ dibaphæ), and that this colour was Asiatic. The Phœnicians traded in it, and sold it for its weight in silver. Instead of fading in the sunshine, its colour intensified. The enduring nature of this colour is proved by the purple fragments from a Greek tomb in the Crimea of about 300 B.C., described in chapter on [stitches], p. [217]. See “Histoire du Tissu Ancien, à l’Exposition de l’Union Générale des Arts Décoratifs.”
[296] Though really red of the purest colour, it doubtless received its name of Tyrian purple as being one of the materials of the amethystine double dye. The web or fleece was first dipped in the dye of Purpura, and then in that of the Buccinum, or they reversed the process to give a different tint. This is Pliny’s account of the process of dyeing, which is very simple, and gives no details. Semper says that the ancients called black and white the two extremes of purple—white the thinnest, and black the thickest or most solid layer of colour. Both were thus considered as colour. (Semper, i. pp. 205-7.) As long as there is light, black always appears to be either blue, or brown, or green, till with darkness all colour disappears.
[297] Exod. xxv. Semper (i. p. 103) suggests that these rams’ skins were dyed with the periploca secamone—a plant still used for this purpose in Egypt.
[298] Jeremiah xxii. 14.
[299] Ezekiel xxiii. 14: “The images of the Chaldeans.” “The men portrayed in vermilion on the wall.”
[300] Villiers Stuart, “Funeral Tent of an Egyptian Queen.” See Appendix.
[301] 2 Chron. ii. 7.