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Bolinus brandaris (originally called Murex brandaris by Linnaeus), and commonly known as the purple dye murex or the spiny dye-murex, is a species of medium-sized predatory sea snail, an edible marine gastropod mollusk in the family Muricidae, the murex snails or the rock snails.<br/><br/> Tyrian purple (Greek, πορφύρα, porphyra, Latin: purpura), also known as royal purple, imperial purple or imperial dye, is a purple-red natural dye, which is a secretion produced by certain species of predatory sea snails in the family Muricidae, a type of rock snail by the name Murex. This dye was probably first used by the ancient Phoenicians. The dye was greatly prized in antiquity because the color did not easily fade, but instead became brighter with weathering and sunlight.<br/><br/> Tyrian purple was expensive: the 4th-century-BC historian Theopompus reported, 'Purple for dyes fetched its weight in silver at Colophon' in Asia Minor. The expense meant that purple-dyed textiles became status symbols, and early sumptuary laws restricted their uses. The production of Tyrian purple was tightly controlled in Byzantium and was subsidized by the imperial court, which restricted its use for the colouring of imperial silks, so that a child born to a reigning emperor was styled 'porphyrogenitos' or 'born in the purple'.
Towards the end of the Bronze Age (around 1200 BCE) there was already trade between the early Phoenicians, Egypt, Cyprus, and Greece. The Phoenicians were famous metalworkers, and by the end of the 8th Century BC, Greek city-states were sending out envoys to the Levant (the eastern Mediterranean) for metal goods.<br/><br/> The height of Phoenician trade was around the 7th and 8th centuries. There is a dispersal of imports (ceramic, stone, and faience) from the Levant that traces a Phoenician commercial channel to the Greek mainland via the central Aegean.<br/><br/> The Phoenicians even derived their name from the Greeks due to their trade. Their most famous trading product was Purple Tyrian dye, the Greek word for which is phoenos.