Geographical Distribution of the Shell-Purple Industry. 9 
Cleopatra at the battle of Actium, distinguished from the 
rest of the fleet by having purple sails—a distinction which 
is said to have been at that time the peculiar privilege of 
the admiral’s vessel.” 
THE ‘CENTRES OF PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION 
OF THE PURPLE INDUSTRY. 
. The Phoenicians have been accredited with the inven- 
tion of this famous purple as well as with that of glass, but 
modern investigators are depriving these ‘maritime pedlars’ 
of much of their former prestige. Glass has been shown 
to have been first made by the Early Egyptians many 
centuries before the probable date of the Phoenician occu- 
pation of the Mediterranean coast, and the credit of the 
invention of shell-purple has now been transferred to the 
Minoans of Crete. R.C. Bosanquet, in his note on “ An 
Early Purple-fishery ”* tells us that ‘“ Leuke, the ‘ White 
Isle’ (modern Kouphonisi), off the south-east coast of 
Crete, was an important fishing-station in antiquity. The 
tithes levied on the catch of fish and of purple-shell men- 
tioned in an inscription of about 350 B.C., must have 
been very profitable, for the possession of the island was 
the subject of a long and bitter dispute among three neigh- 
bouring cities.” 
This island was explored in 1903 by C. T. Currelly 
and R. C. Bosanquet, and “among sand-hills on the north 
shore they found a bank of shells, some whole but mostly 
crushed, of J/urev trunculus, which is known to have been 
used in the manufacture of the purple dye.” 
“Scattered through the heap were fragments of 
pottery, and of a stratile bowl which marked it as not 
only pree-Hellenic but pre-Phoenician. Further digging 
2 J]. Napier, ‘‘ Manufacturing Artsin Ancient Times,” 1874, pp. 287—-S. 
A Pp DS ’ 4, Pp] / 
CIO KiC eA SSCP. LOO3. DP: S17. 
