Debate Responses
Agree Response
It is clear from historical sources that the coveted dye of those times was purple. Purple was a symbol of royalty, wealth and honor. (This is the reason the Romans forbade the non-royal from using murex derived dye, see page 31.) A child born to a reigning emperor was called “porphyrogenitos” – Πορφυρογέννητος, literally “born in the purple”.
In Pliny’s words, regarding purple: “the official rods and axes of Rome clear it a path, and it also marks the honourable estate of boyhood; it distinguishes the senate from the knighthood… and it adds radiance to every garment, while in a triumphal robe it is blended with gold. Consequently, even the mad lust for the purple may be excused…”206
In any case, there are several sources for the use of Murex dye for blue:
1. Pliny refers to two distinct colors derived from the murex family of snails: “purpura” (purple) and “conchylia”207. He even has a separate chapter describing the color “conchylia” that is derived from the murex208. The color of the fabric called “conchylia” is described by Pliny as “glauco”209. In Latin “glauco” means gray or light blue.210. This definition of “conchylia” as a shade of blue can be further evidenced by Pliny’s comparison of the color “conchylia” to the color of the heliotropus flower211. This flower is by Pliny’s own words: “caeruleum” – Latin for blue.212
2. Blue, and specifically תכלת , is also mentioned in the Roman edict forbidding the non-royal use of Murex dye, specifying the dye color “hycinthina”213:
“Emperors Valentinian, Theodosius and Arcadius to Faustus, Count of the Imperial Exchequer.
No private person shall have power to dye or sell purple goods, silk or wool, which is called blatta, oxyblatta and hycinthina.
And if anyone shall sell cloth of the aforesaid murex dyes, he may know that he incurs risk of losing his property and his head.”
The word “hycinthina” used in this edict is the exact same word used by the Septuagint ) תרגום השבעים ( and other Targumim to translate תכלת in the Torah77. The word in Greek is – υάκινθος – yakίnthos78.
3. Another example is the words of Vitruvius214:
4. Additionally, archeologists have recently discovered in a frozen Siberian tomb a well preserved tapestry dyed in hues of both blue and purple. According to the chemists who tested this tapestry, it dates to 300-400 BCE (the times of בית ראשון ) and was dyed with Murex dye215. (See Fig. 5 on page 106)
5. Recently a fragment of blue cloth has been discovered in ארץ ישראל as well that dates back to the times of בית שני . It has been tested and shown to have been dyed with Murex dye. This is a clear proof that Murex dye was used in ארץ ישראל for blue at
that time216.
It is worthy of note, that on a fresco, as well as other illustrations depicting the Emperor Charlemagne (first “Holy” Roman Emperor) in the year 800 CE, he is depicted clothed in full blue robes. (See Fig. 3 on page 105)
Another important point is that the ancient Greeks and Romans seem to have considered blue to be a shade of purple and did not often use the word “blue” in their descriptions of things. In their writing, objects that we would call “blue” are compared to purple. For
example, Homer refers to the sea (blue-green) as being the color of wine (red-purple) – “the wine-dark sea.217”
Below is an excerpt from a (240 page) book on the subject of Greek color descriptions218:
Bottom Line: There is much mention of the Murex being used as a blue dye, although purple was more popular for Roman royalty.
Furthermore, “blue” was likely included in the ancient term “purple”.
Footnotes
204 Courtesy of R’ Shaul Shimon Deutsch, The Living Torah Museum, Brooklyn, NY.
205 ובלא”ה לענין בדיקות ורפואות שנמצאו בחז”ל בהרבה מקומות, יש לציין מש”כ בס’ מהרי”ל )ליקוטים שבסוה”ס(, שאמר המהרי”ל דכל הרפואות והלחשים שבכל התלמוד אסור לנסות אותם משום דאין אדם יכול לעמוד על עיקרם וכי לא יעלו בידם ילעגו וילגלגו על דברי חכמים, ע”ש. וביש”ש )חולין פ”ח סי’ י”ב( כ’ שישנו על כך חרם הקדמונים שאין לסמוך על רפואות התלמוד כדי שלא להוציא לעז על חכמים הקדמונים ולא ידעו שיש שינוי במקומות וכ”ש בזמנים שהדורות פוחתים והולכים ואם הראשונים כענקים אנו כיתושין עיין שם. וע’ שדי חמד )מערכת ר’ כלל נ”ד(.
206 Pliny ibid. Translation: Rackham, 1938.
207 “We find that Pliny generally makes a difference between the colours of the “murex,” or “conchylium,” and those of the “purpura”, or purple.” (Pliny, Bostock (1855), in footnote). Some examples: Book V, Ch. 17 “conchylio atque purpura”, Book IX, Ch. 60 “conchylia et purpuras”, “purpuras et conchylia”.
208 Book IX, Chap. 64. – Fabrics Called Conchyliated.
209 In original Latin the words are: “color austerus in glauco et irascenti similis mari”.
210 Holland (1601) translates this passage: “But how should the other shell-fishes called Conchylia, be so deere and high prised, considering the teincture of them carrieth so strong and stinking a savor, so sullen and melancholie a colour, enclining to a blew or watchet, and resembling rather the angrie and raging sea in a tempest?” The color “watchet” is a light blue color in Middle English. In Italian and Portuguese “glauco” is greenish-blue. (Wiktionary, Babylon and Google Translate.)
211 “the “conchyliated” colour, but which comprehends a variety of shades, such, for
instance, as the tints of the heliotropium…”
212 “We have spoken more than once of the marvels of the heliotropium, which turns with the sun, in cloudy weather even, so great is its sympathy with that luminary. At night, as though in regret, it closes its blue flower.”
213 Corpus Iuris Civilis, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Justinian I, Eastern Roman Emperor 4.40.1. See also 11.8.9.