the.com/royal purple
A color named by committee: whoever killed the most sea snails won.
means A deep, rich purple historically so expensive to produce that only royalty and the very wealthy could afford to wear it.
from Traces back to Tyrian purple, a dye the Phoenicians made from the mucus of thousands of crushed Murex sea snails near the city of Tyre — it took so many snails for so little dye that the color became a byword for extravagance, and sumptuary laws in various ancient and medieval societies reserved it for rulers and nobility, cementing 'purple' as shorthand for royalty itself.
- origin
- Named for Tyrian purple, dye from crushed sea snails
- cost
- Once worth more than its weight in gold
- exclusivity
- Roman sumptuary laws banned commoners from wearing it
- irony
- Modern versions are synthetic and cost pennies