and that this colour was Asiatic. The Phoenicians
traded in it, and sold it for its weight in silver.
Instead of fading in the sunshine, its colour
intensified. The enduring nature of this colour is
proved by the purple fragments from a Greek tomb in the
Crimea of about 300 B.C., described in chapter on
stitches, p. 217. See "Histoire du Tissu Ancien, a
l'Exposition de l'Union Generale des Arts Decoratifs."

[296] Though really red of the purest colour, it
doubtless received its name of Tyrian purple as being
one of the materials of the amethystine double dye. The
web or fleece was first dipped in the dye of Purpura,
and then in that of the Buccinum, or they reversed the
process to give a different tint. This is Pliny's
account of the process of dyeing, which is very simple,
and gives no details. Semper says that the ancients
called black and white the two extremes of purple--white
the thinnest, and black the thickest or most solid layer
of colour. Both were thus considered as colour. (Semper,
i. pp. 205-7.) As long as there is light, black always
appears to be either blue, or brown, or green, till with
darkness all colour disappears.

[297] Exod. xxv. Semper (i. p. 103) suggests that these
rams' skins were dyed with the periploca secamone--a
plant still used for this purpose in Egypt.

[298] Jeremiah xxii. 14.

[299] Ezekiel xxiii. 14: "The images of the Chaldeans."
"The men portrayed in vermilion on the wall."

[300] Villiers Stuart, "Funeral Tent of an Egyptian
Queen." See Appendix.

[301] 2 Chron. ii. 7.

[302] The Arabs received the kermis from Armenia, and
the name was originally "Quer-mes," "oak-apple." Sardis
was famed for its kermes dye. See Birdwood, "Indian
Arts," p. 238, ed. 1880, and Yule's "Marco Polo," i. p.
67.

[303] Isa. ii. 18.

[304] Renouf's Hibbert Lectures, p. 67-69. It may be
called balance, rather than harmony.

[305] Wilkinson, "Manners of the Ancient Egyptians,"
vol. iii. pp. 301-3.

[306] Bluemner, p. 220. See Pliny, "Natural History,"
xxxv. 42.

[307] Semper, i. p. 248.

[308] See Birdwood's "Indian Arts," p. 272. In the Code
of Manu, black garments are sacred to the Indian Saturn,
yellow to Venus, and red to Mars. See Birdwood, p. 235.

[309] See Floyer's "Unexplored Baluchistan