WORLD CIVILIZATION

Detailed explanation-1: -To obtain one gramme of pure purple dye, Nouira said he had to shell 100 kilogrammes of murex, a task that takes him two weekends. He washes the marine snails and sorts them by species and size, then carefully breaks the upper part of the shells to extract the gland that, after oxidisation, produces the purple colour.

Detailed explanation-2: -In 1636, Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens depicted the legendary discovery of murex by the Phoenician god Melcarth (in Greek versions of the tale, it is Hercules), who was strolling along the shore when his dog began to play with a murex snail, staining his muzzle.

Detailed explanation-3: -The main natural resources of the Phoenician cities in the eastern Mediterranean were the prized cedars of Lebanon and murex shells used to make the purple dye.