Wednesday, February 04, 2015

Royal Purple

11th century Byzantine robe, dyed Tyrian purple or royal purple with murex dye. Creatures are griffins.

Tyrian purple


SION (SWITZERLAND) / ÉGLISE DE VALÉRE / ABEGG-STIFTUNG, RIGGISBERG This
fragment from an 11th-century Byzantine robe shows griffins embroidered
on a delicate silk woven of murex-dyed threads. It was in the eastern
Roman empire of Byzantium that the symbolic power of murex purple
reached its apogee.