Ancient Greek Purple Snail-Dye Factory Found on Aegina
Source: GreekReporter.com
Archaeologists have discovered a 3,600-year-old workshop on a Greek island that once produced a rare purple dye from snail glands. This purple dye was more valuable than gold in the ancient world.
A team of researchers and archaeologists have recently excavated two Mycenaean buildings in the Bronze Age town of Kolonna on the Greek island of Aegina. The structures date to the 16th century BC. The older of the two housed pigmented ceramics, grinding tools, and piles of broken mollusc shells. These are all signs of a purple dye factory, according to the study, published in the journal PLOS ONE.
In this small workshop, the ancient Greeks turned out the vivid pigment known as Mycenaean purple, or, as it was called by the Romans, Tyrian purple. The dye was first produced by the Phoenicians in modern day Lebanon. It was extracted from the mucus of the Mediterranean’s carnivorous sea snails (murex snails). In the region, it was solely the wealthy who owned anything Tyrian purple, as the pigment’s manufacturing process was incredibly difficult.
The Roman historian Pliny the Elder wrote about it, stating that thousands of snails were needed to produce just a single ounce of purple dye. Manufacturers crushed snail shells, extracted their miniscule glands, mixed them with salt water, and allowed the potion to sit in the sun, according to the study.
The result was a “deep purple, lilac or dark red color,” which was used on textiles and paintings, study co-author Lydia Berger, an archaeologist at the University of Salzburg, told Popular Science.
The fragments of pottery found by the archaeologists on the site were likely containers for dye. As Berger states, the pottery’s pigments are such high-quality that they could still be extracted and utilized as clothes dye today. Also found at the site were stones for grinding, a waste pit, and tons of crushed snail shells.
History of the purple snail-dye
After some time, purple became the color of royalty. In the first century AD, Roman Emperor Julius Caesar named Tyrian purple his official color and, in so doing, inspired other emperors to wear the color, too. However, in the 1500s BC, the pigment was only just starting to be produced.
At the time, Kolonna was a small, densely-populated town, according to Berger, whose citizens manufactured and traded a variety of handcrafted products and raw materials, such as the purple dye, which hadn’t yet become exclusive.
The dye factory inhabited an urban area, which is unusual for these workshops. However, its coastal location would have been well-suited for dye production. The researchers write that snails had to be caught and kept alive until their glands were harvested.
Researchers concluded—after examining the shells in this workshop—that only a single snail species was used there, namely the banded dye-murex. It was not the only animal killed on the site, according to Newsweek‘s Aristos Georgiou. Archaeologists also discovered the burnt bones of several piglets and lambs. Researchers believe these animals were sacrificed in the factory as part of a ritual, aimed at blessing the dye’s manufacture.
The original article: GreekReporter.com .
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