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Account of the chief Phoenician dye

The brilliancy and beauty of the Phoenician coloured stuffs resulted from the excellency of their dyes. Here we touch a second branch of their industrial skill, for the principal dyes used were originally invented and continuously fabricated by the Phoenicians themselves, not imported from any foreign country. Nature had placed along the Phoenician coast, or at any rate along a great portion of it, an inexhaustible supply of certain shell-fish, or molluscs, which contained as a part of their internal economy a colouring fluid possessing remarkable, and indeed unique, qualities. Some account has been already given of the species which are thought to have been anciently most esteemed. They belong, mainly, to the two allied families of the /Murex/ and the /Buccinum/ or /Purpura/. Eight species of the former, and six of the latter, having their habitat in the Mediterranean, have been distinguished by some naturalists; but two of the former only, and one of the latter, appear to have attracted the attention of the Phoenicians. The /Murex brandaris/ is now thought to have borne away the palm from all the others; it is extremely common upon the coast; and enormous heaps of the shells are found, especially in the vicinity of Tyre, crushed and broken--the débris, as it would seem, cast away by the manufacturers of old.The /Murex trunculus/, according to some, is just as abundant, in a crushed state, in the vicinity of Sidon, great banks of it existing, which are a hundred yards long and several yards thick. It is a more spinous shell than the /M. brandaris/, having numerous projecting points, and a generally rough and rugged appearance. The /Purpura/ employed seems to have been the /P. lapillus/, a mollusc not confined to the Mediterranean, but one which frequents also our own shores, and was once turned to some account in Ireland. The varieties of the /P. lapillus/ differ considerably. Some are nearly white, some greyish, others buff striped with brown. Some, again, are smooth, others nearly as rough as the /Murex trunculus/. The /Helix ianthina/, which is included by certain writers among the molluscs employed for dyeing purposes by the Phoenicians, is a shell of a completely different character, smooth and delicate, much resembling that of an ordinary land snail, and small compared to the others. It is not certain, however, that the /helix/, though abounding in the Eastern Mediterranean, ever attracted the notice of the Phoenicians.

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