Proceedings of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society, 1919-20. 



llth December, 1919. 



Professor Gregg Wilson, President of the Society, in the Chair, 



THE DYEING OF PUEPEE IN ANCIENT ISRAEL. 

 By Rev. Isaac Herzog, M.A., D.Lit., Chief Rabbi of Dublin. 



(Abstract.) 



Varied as are the meanings of the term purple in modern 

 usage, to the student of antiquity the word denotes a cloth dyed 

 with a colouring matter furnished by certain marine snails. And 

 the tinting of cloth by means of marine animal pigment is still 

 practised, albeit in a crude, primitive form, by the natives of 

 certain coasts of Central America. 



Our principal authorities as to the species of marine snail 

 anciently employed in purple-dyeing are Aristotle and Pliny, but 

 their statements leave much to be desired. Aristotle, in the 

 fifth book of his History of Animals (chap. 15), states that it is 

 the genus Trop4>vpa {Purpura) which furnishes the pigment for the 

 dyeing of purple. In close association with the Purpurae Aris- 

 totle also gives some account of a genus called Ki^pv^ (Keryx) 

 without, however,, distinctly referring co its employment in the 

 dyeing of purple. Pliny, on the other hand, speaks of two 

 genera utilised for the manufacture of purple, namely. Purpura 

 and Buccinum. It is assumed by all writers on the subject, at 

 least as far as my research has extended, that the Keryx of 

 Aristotle and the Buccinum of Pliny are identical ; but in my 

 work on Tekelet, still awaiting publication, I have shown that 

 there is very serious ground for questioning the identification. 



Moiiern research on this subject began with the identification 

 by Guillaume Rondelet (d. 1556), Professor at Montpellier, of 

 the Purpura of Pliny with the species now termed Murex 



