Pieces of pottery stained with blue and purple dye made from murex sea snails are among the forgotten artifacts that sat in storage for about 50 years after they were excavated. They constitute ...

The word ‘purple’ was first used in the late 900s AD, derived from the Greek ‘porphura’, named after the dye made from the mucus secreted by the spiny-dye-murex snail, or the purpura mollusk.