World's Most Expensive Paint: Royal Purple!

Tyrian purple is thought to be discovered around 1600 B.C., bizarre or wonderful depending on what kind of person you are it curiously is created from the mucus of marine mollusks, particularly the Murex seasnail. The sunlight purplefies the colour of this dye. For 1.5 grams of pure dye 12,000 shellfish are needed. This discovery among the Phoenicians sparked the beginning of the dye chemical industry. Its expensive and therefore it was only allowed to circulate among the affluent member of the community which prompted its symbolic connection with royalty, and thus its other name Royal purple. Below is a dancer at the Trinidad Carnival in 2010, with this purple on her exotic attire!

Here is the mythological story of its origin:

One day while Hercules was strolling along the shores of Phoenicia with a nymph he loved, named Tyrus, his dog, who was running beside them, came upon a Murex trunculus, with head protruding from its trumpet-like shell. The dog quickly devoured the shellfish and came away with a mouth stained brilliant purple. Enraptured by the tint, Tyrus claimed a robe of that same striking shade as the price Hercules would have to pay for her hand.

Hercules, being Hercules, was able to gather from the Mediterranean waters enough mollusks to fulfill the wish of his ladylove. Thus goes the legend of the origin of Tyrian purple. (This quote is from an article entitled: Tyrian Purple, appeared on pages 20-21 of the August/September 1960 print edition of Saudi Aramco World.)