Time Travel Question 35: Ancient History XVI and Earlier
These Questions are the result of suggestions from the previous iteration.
This category may include suggestions made too late to fall into the correct earlier time grouping. Basically, I'd already moved on to human history, but I'd periodically get a pre-homin suggestion, hence the occasional random item waaay out of it's time period, rather than reopen the category.
In some cases a culture lasted a really long time and I grouped them by whether it was likely the later or earlier grouping made the most sense with the information I had. (Invention ofs tend to fall in an earlier grouping if it's still open. Ones that imply height of or just before something tend to get grouped later, but not always. Sometimes I'll split two different things from the same culture into different polls because they involve separate research goals or the like).
Please add new suggestions below if you have them for future consideration. All cultures and time periods welcome.
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Ripe Plum Tyrian Purple (#38024f to #67033d)
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anyway:
- Organic residue analysis of pottery from the dye workshop at Alatsomouri-Pefka, Crete
suck on it, tyre.
AND:
KN X 976 from LMIIIA2 (prior to 1300bce); should be read as: “This
many royal specialists are located at the purple workshop at da-*83-ja.”
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I saw the post about wanted info dump requests and such-
this is only if you want to: Can you info dump about the color purple?
(doesn’t it have to do with royalty and snail mucus…?)
also, if you ever need anything, feel free to vent, talk, scream yell, do pretty much anything in my asks or my dm’s 😁
I’m here for you 🫂
-@emerson-the-psycho
I DID THAT ACTUALLY!
Why is purple better than blue?💜
I did not include the fact about TYRIAN PURPLE, which is the type of redish-purple that is made from snails!
Tyrian Purple
Tyrian purple is a pigment made from the mucus of several species of the Murex snail.
It is secreted by several species of predatory sea snails in the family Muricidae, rock snails. In ancient times, extracting this dye involved tens of thousands of snails & substantial labor, & as a result, the dye was highly valued.
It took thousands of snails to produce one ounce of dye.
Once the snails were harvested from the sea, the mucus glands were removed & placed in a lead pot filled with brine. The pot was then slowly heated for about ten days until the mixture turned a reddish-purple color.
It was a long & smelly process.
With the fall of the Roman & after it the Byzantine Empire, the European understanding of purple dyeing fell away & by the 14th century the secrets of Tyrian Purple were lost. It has only been through recent experimentation that the technique was rediscovered in 2001.
Current producers extract & harvest Tyrian purple from the murex shellfish in much the same way as the ancient Phoenicians.
Here's a sketch because I couldn't find a single murex picture I enjoyed:
(found on Pinterest)
Thanks for the inbox, Em!
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Atem giving [unnamed oc] a gift of cloth dyed Tyrian purple.
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Why Tyrian Purple Is So Expensive | Insider Business
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Edward Teach, the color purple, and snails
Last night it struck me that there is a connection between snail forks and the color purple in Our Flag Means Death.
In Ep 5 of S1, a snail fork is used as a weapon against a captured French officer who has insulted Edward. Later in the same episode, Ed gets dressed up in gorgeous, luxuriant purple garments to attend the fancy dress party.
I'm color-obsessed and have read a couple of books on the history of color and pigment, which is where I first learned about Tyrian Purple.
To keep it brief, in ancient times (around 1200 BCE) Tyrian Purple pigment was obtained by harvesting mucus from several species of the Murex sea snail. It was very difficult to obtain and the process to refine it into dye was smelly and complicated; thus only the wealthiest could afford it. Its rich hue was not only fade-resistent, it actually improved and got richer with age, which made it a prized pigment.
Tyrian Purple was not likely the dye that would have been used in the 18th century to make Ed's fancy-party garments, but the connection between snails, purple, and the elite class was interesting to me.
Edward is worthy of the finest things.
Thank you for coming to my Ed Talk.
Some interesting & relevant links on purple dye:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_purple
https://bit.ly/3crsnWF
https://bit.ly/3IYnKzR
And if you want to read more interesting shit about color, I recommend this book!
https://bit.ly/3b3RkHn
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Cherry Pie Tyrian Purple (#1b0457 to #680241)
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