Can you imagine that one of the most glorious colors comes from THIS? Purpur echt is otherwise known as Tyrian red, Phoenician purple, royal purple, imperial purple or imperial dye. The source of this pigment is a mucous secretion from the hypobranchial gland of one of several species of medium-sized predatory sea snails that are found in the eastern Mediterranean.
The snails use the secretion to sedate prey. The snail also secretes this substance when it is attacked by predators, or poked by people. The dye can be collected either by "milking" the snails, which is deeply labor intensive or by collecting and destructively crushing the snails. David Jacoby remarks that "twelve thousand snails of Murex brandaris yield no more than 1.4 g of pure dye, enough to color only the trim of a single garment." (See Jacoby, "Silk Economics and Cross-Cultural Artistic Interaction: Byzantium in the Muslim World and the Christian West," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 58 (2004: 197-240).
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