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Process of dyeing

Concerning the Phoenician process of dyeing, the accounts which have come down to us are at once confused and incomplete. Nothing is said with respect to their employment of mordants, either acid or alkali, and yet it is almost certain that they must have used one or the other, or both, to fix the colours, and render them permanent. The /gamins/ of Tyre employ to this day mordants of each sort; and an alkali derived from seaweed is mentioned by Pliny as made use of for fixing some dyes, though he does not distinctly tell us that it was known to the Phoenicians or employed in fixing the purple. What we chiefly learn from this writer as to the dyeing process is--first, that sometimes the liquid derived from the /murex/ only, sometimes that of the /purpura/ or /buccinum/ only, was applied to the material which it was wished to colour, while the most approved hue was produced by an application of both dyes separately. Secondly, we are told that the material, whatever it might be, was steeped in the dye for a certain number of hours, then withdrawn for a while, and afterwards returned to the vat and steeped a second time. The best Tyrian cloths were called /Dibapha/, i.e. "twice dipped;" and for the production of the true "Tyrian purple" it was necessary that the dye obtained from the /Buccinum/ should be used after that from the /Murex/ had been applied. The /Murex/ alone gave a dye that was firm, and reckoned moderately good; but the /Buccinum/ alone was weak, and easily washed out.

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