The predatory sea snails only live in the Eastern Mediterranean and off the Atlantic coast of Morocco. The dye was known as Tyrian purple as a reference to the city of Tyre, in modern-day Lebanon ...

Creating the historic hue required an immense number of sea snails found along ... Once collected, the snails had to be kept ...

One reader wonders: Since purple dye was scarce ... as 1200 B.C.—was made by extracting mucus from snails found along the Mediterranean Sea through an expensive, labor-intensive process.

The much sought-after source of purple dye came from one of the glands of a sea snail called the murex. This particular shade, known as Tyrian, was unusual because it didn’t fade and became more ...