Thus, the purple garments were the main reason for the Phoenician’s wide-ranging expeditions, which ultimately helped to facilitate the exchange of cultures, ideas, and knowledge between major cradles of civilization.

In doing so, they established overseas colonies as sites for gathering murex and manufacturing the purple dye, and as trading posts.

So exorbitantly expensive – worth literally more than their weight in gold – garments made of purple cloth became associated with power and wealth, worn only by the very elite.Īs the basis for their trading empire, the Phoenicians maintained a monopoly on the expensive Tyrian dye, expanding across the Mediterranean, Iberian Peninsular, and North Africa in search for beds of the precious murex shell. The natural dye’s difficulty of manufacture, striking deep purple color, and resistance to fading made it highly desirable and expensive as a clothing dye. The most expensive and treasured product of the Phoenician civilization was the famous Tyrian purple dye (also known as Phoenician purple, royal purple, imperial purple, or imperial dye) extracted from the mucus of the murex shellfish. Their expansive maritime trade network lasted over a millennium, during which they amassed large amounts of wealth developing the most sought-after products in the ancient world.

As skilled merchants and sea people, they grew to be the dominant commercial power of much of classical antiquity, expanding their sphere of influence from their home in the Levant region (modern-day Southern Syria, Lebanon, and Northern Israel) throughout the Mediterranean sea and beyond. The Phoenicians: A Civilization Built on Purple DyeĪncient Phoenicia was a maritime civilization which came to prominence in the mid-12th century BCE.

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