In The News
On May 19, Cornellia Cornelius announced the winners for the
2008 Best Homes of Ancient Worlds contest.
Baladria Ubaratutu won the Gold Design award for Mesopotamia. Congratulations, Baladria! We encourage everyone to take a tour of Baladria's Bodacious Bitum. You will not be disappointed.
A story from the Daily Index by Leah Enkidu:
Sitting down at a Family dinner (*Thetis Didius) the meal was interrupted by a question Debauchery? (*Senex Caecilius). He was immediately shot down, Still looking...said
(*elena Curius). But a shady invite is extended, You would be most welcome Senex! ;) (*Sextus Crassus). On the other hand ... (*Varius Cicero) we could all sing, and a song is started, Odie, Odie, Odie (*Anarane Burgundian). Beautiful! (*CherokeeRose Sequoyah) was heard from the other end of the table. Its time to finish up. Thank you (*Devi Vardhana) for coming to dinner. The End
The Color Purple: A Phoenician legacy
If you look up the color "purple" in a dictionary, one of the first meanings you'll see is a distinction of royalty. The association of royalty with the color purple stems from the ancient reddish-purple dye made from the glands of murex mollusks. The most famous example of this dye is Tyrian purple from the Phoenician homeland along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean.
The expense of producing the dye was so exorbitant (many thousands of mollusks were needed to produce one ounce of dye) that only the very wealthy could afford it. However, it was said to be worth the price because once set, the dye would not run or fade, and the intensity of the purple improved as the dyed cloth aged. Tyre and other Phoenician cities traded fine garments dyed purple, and spread the dye-making technology to their settlements around the Mediterranean. Today, archaeologists still find huge piles of murex shells near the ruins of ancient Phoenician settlements. These are usually downwind from where people lived, as heating sea creatures in salt water for days during dye extraction was most likely a very smelly process.
The Phoenicians were thriving as early as the third millennium B.C. in a coastal region known as the Levant. It wasn't until around 1100 B.C., after a period of social collapse and general disorder, that they emerged as a significant cultural and political force. From the ninth to sixth centuries B.C. they dominated the Mediterranean Sea, establishing emporiums and colonies from Cyprus to the Aegean Sea, Italy, North Africa, and Spain. They grew rich trading precious metals from abroad and products such as wine, olive oil, and most notably the timber from the famous cedars of Lebanon, which forested the mountains that rise steeply from the coast of their homeland.
Through their vigorous trade routes, the Phoenicians became cultural middlemen; they disseminated ideas, myths, and knowledge from the powerful Assyrian and Babylonian worlds to their contacts in the Aegean. Those ideas helped spark a cultural revival in Greece, leading to Greece's Golden Age, and the birth of Western civilization.
The Phoenicians had been fighting Rome for control of the western Mediterranean for several decades. The conflict, known as the Punic Wars, ended when Rome burned Carthage to the ground in 146 B.C., destroying the last great center of Phoenician culture. After the Punic Wars, the Roman state took over production of purple dye. Under Nero, the wearing of purple garments was restricted to the emperor alone. The color has remained popular with royalty ever since.
Did you know?
The Roman Emperor Aurelian refused to let his wife buy a purple-dyed silk garment because it cost its weight in gold
The Babylonians were the West's earliest plumbers.
View the oldest map in the world: Ancient Babylon.
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