After the conquest of Egypt, Cambyses, king of Persia, prepared an expedition, in 525 BC, against Ethiopia. Under the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III (744-721 BC), the Phoenician cities added rich clothing in purple, with the precious gifts in gold and silver, sent to the Assyrian monarchs.ĭuring the Persian period (550-330 BC), only kings were worthy to dress with purple fabrics. In Assyrian registers, a mural inscription, from the eighth century BC, mentions this wool in the tributes list of an Assyrian king. Those commercial transactions indicate the presence of the purple industry on the Canaanite coast in the middle of the second millennium BC (1).
Such texts lead us to think that the wool was distributed to the dyers in order to be colored, and then recuperated by merchants who resold it locally or exported it. In 1934, François Thureau-Dangin (1872-1944), archaeologist and French epigraphist published a cuneiform text from Ugarit, which stipulated that in about 3500 years ago, a local merchant noted the quantity of purple wool owed to him by some persons, who appear to be dyers. In order to please his sweetheart, Melqart, ordered to collect the seashells and to prepare a tincture of this crimson color, and make a dyed tunic witch delight the heart of the nymph.įrom an archaeological point of view, the old remains of the dye-works discovered on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, proved that the purple dye industry existed there since ancient times. The nymph admired the color and asked the God to offer her a cloth with such a beautiful color.
While he was walking on the beach with the nymph Tyros, his dog found a Murex and munched on it. The legend tells that the discovery of the purple was attributed to the god Melqart Heracles.
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