Vì sao màu tím được coi là màu của các bậc vương giả?

đơn giản do cung-cầu mà thôi,

“Màu tím xứ Tyre” của người Phoenicia có từ một loài ốc biển ngày nay có tên Bolinus brandaris, loài ốc này quý hiếm đến mức giá trị của chúng được tính bằng số vàng có khối lượng tương ứng.
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...The reason for purple’s regal reputation comes down to a simple case of supply and demand. For centuries, the purple dye trade was centered in the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre in modern day Lebanon. The Phoenicians’ “Tyrian purple” came from a species of sea snail now known as Bolinus brandaris, and it was so exceedingly rare that it became worth its weight in gold. To harvest it, dye-makers had to crack open the snail’s shell, extract a purple-producing mucus and expose it to sunlight for a precise amount of time. It took as many as 250,000 mollusks to yield just one ounce of usable dye, but the result was a vibrant and long-lasting shade of purple.

...The royal class’ purple monopoly finally waned after the fall of the Byzantine empire in the 15th century, but the color didn’t become more widely available until the 1850s, when the first synthetic dyes hit the market.

Tags: history

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