The color from the sea

In the 8th and 9th centuries, three Byzantine empresses changed history. The female touch of power through Irene, Euphrosyne and Theodora immortalized Byzantine culture and art and ensured that it had an impact that spanned centuries. Historians, who identified many common points between the styles of rule, could not help but mention a detail that was not of much interest to them. All three were widows, all three had come to power through marriage, and all three chose purple for their imperial robes. And only the sea could produce that purple.

There was a reason why Judith Herrin, a British historian and specialist in late antiquity and Byzantium, chose to name her book about medieval Byzantium Women in Purple. While the political choices of Irene, Euphrosyne and Theodora shaped imperial diplomacy, their aesthetic choices gave direction to an artistic movement centered in Istanbul. Of course, there was purple again in the foreground, which is a symbol of the city’s power.

When we examine the periods when colors could only be obtained by natural methods, it becomes easier to make such a prediction. It may seem strange to some and ordinary to others; the underlying reason for this preference is the passion for jewelry, which has always been a feminine trait.

Purple and violet were the most difficult and expensive colors to obtain naturally. Legends attribute the discovery of purple to the Phoenician god Melkarth’s dog biting a seashell, staining its mouth purple. However, possessing these colors, which can only be obtained from certain species of shellfish called murex brandaris, m. trunculus and purpura haemastoma, was equivalent to possessing a rare jewel in those centuries. The fact that eight thousand insects were needed to obtain just one gram of dye meant that only the most glorious empresses could wear purple fabric.

These shells and the tools used to obtain the dye were found during excavations in the ancient city of Tyre in Lebanon. The natural dye found in the glands of these crustaceans, which is naturally pale yellow, turns first green, then red and finally purple when affected by sunlight. In order to create a permanent color on the fabric, it must first be mixed with water and urine that has been kept waiting, boiled continuously for ten days, and the resulting solution must be reduced with honey, making it one of the first on the list of “invaluable blessings”.

Since the light fastness of the purple color obtained after all this effort is extremely high, it produces a result that is highly resistant to ultraviolet rays and does not fade over time. This is another feature that increases the value of the color and makes it preferred. Although Tyrian purple is no longer produced, shellfish are still used as a natural dye in Mexico. Every winter, purpura mollusks are plucked from the rocks and the color once gifted to Aztec kings is now sold to tourists.

Byzantine crown princes were born in the purple room of the Grand Palace and waited for the day they would wear purple robes. This privilege of being an imperial symbol that purple assumed starting in Istanbul was gradually accepted as a color symbolizing power and high status in other societies as well. For example, Caesar forbade anyone but himself to wear the purple toga, allowing senators to wear only a purple stripe around the hem of their togas. Purple continued to be the emperor of colors until the mid-15th century, and then disappeared for an unknown reason. This unknown reason was probably that the unfading color of Byzantium faded with the conquest in the same century. After all, according to Homer, purple, “the color of kings with the power of God” since Hellenistic times, could not protect the impenetrable walls this time. Philosophers, artists, mystics and scientists have always debated the nature of color. Indian astrologers suggested thousands of years ago that the white light of the sun was composed of all colors. Those who claimed that colors have form with an abstract approach associated purple with ovality. According to those who argue that colors are also linked to personalities, purple was the choice of artists because it has subtle qualities that other colors do not have. It is also known that purple and violet were used as sedatives in treatments related to the nervous system in the Middle Ages. In the following periods, the sources of color were always taken care of and jealously hidden. Pigments, especially purple and saffron, were measured by their weight in gold. So much so that in the Middle Ages, a man could be burned at the stake in Nuremberg for selling fake saffron. Unlike their counterparts, the Orthodox and Catholic churches of the Eastern world, which did not insist on a universal color system, were content with using the favorite color inherited from three legendary female emperors during the pre-Easter fasting period.

According to Homer, since Hellenistic times it was ‘purple, the colour of kings with the power of God’.

Returning to the relationship between color and Istanbul, we can recall that communication was established through the color language of flowers in the Ottoman harem for centuries, and place particular focus on the richness of expression of purple. The method of expression through the colors of flowers became a means of communication exported from the Ottoman palace to Buckingham during the Victorian era. In that language, if the flower stretching from one hand to the other was red, it meant the passion of love, if it was white it meant purity, if it was pink it meant sensitivity, if it was yellow it meant forgetfulness, and if it was purple it meant humility. In other words, as the color passed from Byzantium to the Ottoman Empire, it took on an almost diametrically opposite meaning.