Etymological and Geographic Origins of 'Purple'

Because many of these shellfish are known to inhabit the waters off the coast of Lebanon (one dye, known as Tyrian purple, refers to the city of Tyre, or Tyr, located in what is today southern Lebanon) and Syria, the origin of the purple dyes was often assumed to have originated from this area. Indeed, the ancient land of Canaan and its corresponding Greek name, Phoenicia, mean "land of purple" (Astour 1965: 346). However, Robert Stieglitz has suggested that the dye might actually have originated in Crete. The earliest archaeological evidence—heaps of discarded shells—for purple dye production in Canaan dates to approximately the 15th century BCE, however there are archaeological indications that the Minoans on Crete developed a little earlier, about 1750 BCE (Stieglitz, 48-9).

It's interesting to note that the word purple may derive from the word porphyra, whose meaning refers to agitated action, such as rising, seething and boiling, the very process required to create the purple dye. Of the etymological connection between the words "Canaan," "Phoenician," and "purple," Astour states,

It would thus seem that the Phoenicia[n] purple-fishers of the Bronze Age, who were attracted to the Aegean by its wealth of murex and who processed their catch on the spot[,] transferred to the natives the technological term for the operation of 'boiling' or 'decoction,' parpur or parpura, which became with them, on the one hand, the general term for violent seething and agitation of water, on the other hand, the special term for purple dye, obtained by prolonged boiling (350).

Dressed in Purple

Regardless of where or how it was discovered, purple dye has been used in clothing for thousands of years. Numerous ancient Minoan snake goddess statues depict a woman wearing a long dress whose stripes are believed to have originally been been stained with murex blue (Stieglitz, 54). The fringe on the talit, the ritual garment worn by some Jewish men as part of daily morning prayer and/or on their wedding day, was originally supposed to have been dyed from murex—an imitation or substitute was unacceptable. Indeed, recounting a conversation between Moses and God, the Torah states,

Speak to the Israelite people and instruct them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the ages; let them attach a cord of blue to the fringe at each corner. That shall be your fringe; look at it and recall all the commandments of the Lord and observe them, so that you do not follow your heart and eyes in your lustful urge" (Numbers 15: 38-39).

As murex dwindled in supply however, it became increasingly difficult and expensive to obtain, and Rabbis removed the requirement that the fringe, or tzitzit, be dyed with murex. Today, murex has become more readily available, and some Jews have reverted to wearing tzitzit dyed with this substance (Plaut, Bamberger and Hallo 1981: 1124).

Next >>>