The colour of kings
Tyrian purple
Twelve thousand snails for a cloak. They named us for the dye. Then they wore it as if they had made it.
The vat
Murex brandaris, murex trunculus, purpura — crushed on the rocks of Tyre and Sidon. The work stank. The colour did not fade. Emperors, from Assyria to Rome, wore what our vats stained.
The Greeks named us Φοίνικες for that purple. The Mesopotamians had already named the cloth with the land: Kinahhu, Canan'i. A dye and a people, one word.
Gad Yaton · from the restoration
All crafts