This previous weekend, I was in the Canary Islands, more specifically in Tenerife. Visiting the Teide National Park, the guide told me that on the island of Los Lobos, a small islet between the islands of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, some Roman archaeological remains were found. These ruins were an old Murice workshop.
Muricids are marine gastropod mollusks. They were highly exploited by the Phoenicians around 1500 BC.
After fishing large quantities of this mollusk, the shell was broken to extract the hypobranchial gland, which contains a fluid that can be transformed into dye. This liquid in maceration and after being exposed to the sun, turns color, passing through yellow, green, blue, and red tones. So the dyers had to take the times into account to obtain one tone or another. It is a high-quality dye, and it holds up very well over time.
The extraction of purple dye reached its splendor during the years of the Roman and Byzantine empires. It is known that fabrics such as wool and silk were dyed, as well as leather for making shoes.
I find it very interesting to emphasize that since it was a very laborious process, its cost was only accessible to the elites. Going so far as to legislate its exclusive use by the ruling classes (color oficialis) and becoming a state monopoly.
Centuries later this color was used by the Christian religion, for the suits of high officials within the church, again, differentiating through color, from the working classes.
Currently, in many color psychology manuals, the color purple or violet is associated with SPIRITUALITY, MYSTERY, MYSTICISM, or POWER.
Personally, I don't believe that colors have a definition, I feel that they are free, free of meaning and attributes. It is culture, through events such as the Murice, that gives value to the different elements of reality.
I invite you to relate to colors from your intuition, outside of mental constructions.
Each color uniquely transforms us and has its precise moment.
At Symbiotic Colors, we are committed to obtaining vegan colors sustainably. Therefore, we consider that, despite its great beauty, this dye does not take into account animal suffering, in addition to seeing it merely as an extractive resource.
We encourage you to experiment with the earth pigments, native plants, and, fungi in a respectful manner and with great curiosity.
We are preparing some MONOGRAPHIC COURSES on COLORS that we will soon announce both on our Instagram page and this website.
Thanks for coming this far, happy week.
Sil
Comments