Nature Bulletin No. 749   March 28, 1964
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
Seymour Simon, President
Roberts Mann, Conservation Editor

****:PURPLE AND SCARLET

On Easter Sunday in Roman Catholic churches, in celebration of the 
Resurrection, the priests are appareled in white vestments and have 
laid aside the purple vestments worn all during Lent. In their liturgical 
code, white signified joy; purple signifies penance; black, green and 
red signify sorrow, hope and love.

White, except in Oriental countries where it is a badge of mourning, is 
commonly regarded as a symbol of innocence and purity. In Roman 
times, purple also had another significance: it was a symbol of royal or 
noble rank. Robes dyed with Tyrian purple, obtainable only from the 
Phoenicians, were so costly that only kings, magistrates and wealthy 
nobles could wear them.

In the New Testament it is variously related that after Pontius Pilate 
had condemned Jesus to be scourged and crucified, the Roman soldiers 
placed a platted crown of thorns upon his head, stripped him of the 
white garments He always wore, and clothed him with purple. Then 
they spat upon him, smote him, and on bended knees saluted him: 
"Hail, King of the Jews!" "And when they had mocked him, they took 
off the purple from him, and put his own clothes on him, and led him 
out to crucify him . (St. Mark 15:20)

Tyrian purple, actually a deep crimson called Purpura in Latin, was a 
precious dye prepared by a process known only to inhabitants of the 
ancient city of Tyre in Phoenicia, and it yielded immense wealth to 
them. It was obtained from the secretions of certain marine snails and 
related mollusks found in the Mediterranean and Red seas. A blue dye 
-- really violet in color -- was secured from another species of 
shellfish.

The ancient Phoenicians were a Semitic race who inhabited a narrow 
strip of the Syrian coast, about 200 miles long and 20 miles wide -- 
now Lebanon -- and their two principal cities were Tyre and Sidon. 
They became the most skillful shipbuilders and navigators, the most 
far-ranging explorers, and the greatest merchants of their time. They 
imported and exported exotic products from every known land: gold, 
silver, copper, and even tin from Britain; spices, perfumes, precious 
stones and silks from the Far East; fine linens from Egypt; and wool 
from Arabia, woven into robes. Their artisans wrought vessels of glass, 
brass, silver and gold. When Solomon built a temple for the Lord, the 
cedars and firs of Lebanon furnished its timbers, expertly hewed by the 
shipbuilders in Sidon.

In addition to Tyrian purple, the Phoenicians produced other dyestuffs 
-- notably kermes, the Arabic name for the scarlet dye used in coloring 
linens and wool in Biblical times. They are mentioned many times in 
the Old Testament. When the Lord commanded Moses to build a 
tabernacle. He specified that: "Moreover thou shalt make the 
tabernacle with ten curtains of fine-twined linen, and blue, and purple, 
and scarlet. (Exodus 26:1)

Kermes was derived from little scale-insects which infest an oak 
(Quercus coccifera) abundant in mountainous regions of Palestine, 
Lebanon, Syria and southeastern Europe. This oak, branching 
profusely from the bottom upward and with an abundance of leaves, 
covers rocky hills with a dense underbrush of small trees. Its branches 
and twigs become covered with white fluffy tents and, beneath them, 
what appear to be small spherical galls: the female insects with 
densely packed masses of eggs. From those scales or "galls", collected 
and dried, the scarlet dye was obtained. There is a striking parallel 
between kermes and cochineal, a carmine dye derived from a tiny 
insect that infests prickly-pear cacti. (Bulletin No. 203)