SO the Murex Snail was used to make blue-purple dye as early as the Phoenicians and continued into the Greek and Roman empires. It was EXTREMELY costly and difficult to make, as in, one single pound of it would cost about $66,000 to purchase in today's American dollar.
Because of this, Tyrian Purple (as it became known) was associated only with those who had royal or otherwise high status.
NOW HERE COMES THE JEWISH PART
you may have seen this item of clothing in photos of some Jews today, this is called tzitzit. mostly worn by men in the Orthodox community under their shirts.
now, those tassels are no ORDINARY tassels. there are VERY SPECIFIC TASSELS. there are rules about the number of threads and the type of knots and where they should be placed and what type of material they should be and so on and so forth. here's an example of some tying methods:
ORIGINALLY, some of these strings were BLUE. (I'll come back to this photo in a second.) we know this because it's been passed down through thousands of years of archaeological writings in addition to being in the torah, with the word being "תְּכֵלֶת", or "tekhelet." it's strongly implied to be an expensive and difficult dye to produce, with the wealthy and those of important status having more of it.
but wait because we're jews and we can't avoid an argument there's this like WHOLE FUCKIN CONTROVERSY over what specific blue dye was used because we can't just use any old blue dye!! there are all these rules about how to make these strings! and after the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE the knowledge of the source of tekhelet was lost!
and the torah itself doesn't identify a source for the tekhelet! we only know the Ancient Hebrew name of the ocean creature it comes from, "hillazon."
so for most of the diaspora, the solution was to make tzitzit strings that were just plain white, rather than risk using the wrong dye. that's what we've been doing for centuries. like almost two thousand years.
Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog (who also happened to become the first chief rabbi of ireland but anyway) made a big statement declaring that the Murex Snail was the most likely source of tekhelet, but he couldn't say 100% for sure because sometimes it produced purple dye, and tekhelet was supposed to be blue.
FAST FORWARD TO THE 1980s
a chemist in Israel discovers how to consistently make blue dye from the Murex Snail in a way that appears to match a lot of descriptions from Jewish writings. archaeologists in Syria discover textiles dating back as early as the 14th century BCE dyed with the Murex. and Rabbi Eliyahu Tavger in Israel successfully dyes tekhelet strings with the Murex for the first time in millenia.
in the past 40 years there's been a flurry of rabbinic arguments, dissents, agreements, organizations made, community standards created, all about the Murex. there are many Jews today who wear tekhelet! for the first time in holyshit THOUSANDS OF YEARS!!
and of course, once again, because we're jews, there are just as many who say that until we get 100% confirmation of what tekhelet really was, they will not wear it, just in case it's the wrong one! because if this ends up being incorrect that would be Very Bad!
it's all down to this lil guy.
...but I just told my boss it was the Murex Snail.
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