Why Is the Color Purple Missing From Most National Flags?
A brief history of one of the most expensive colors
Look at the flag of Dominica (not to be confused with the Dominican Republic) closely.
You’ll notice that the flag has a parrot with purple feathers. The flag is one of only two flags in the world to feature a purple color.
The other is Nicaragua’s flag, which contains a rainbow with a streak of purple that requires a magnifying glass to see.
Why are there only two countries that have purple in their flags, and they aren’t very noticeable?
Purple was a symbol of royalty, hence logic dictates we should see it on more flags.
So, why isn’t purple used on more national flags?
Understanding why purple is missing from flags is easier if we look at how it’s made. The history of the purple color provides us with a clue about its rarity.
Let us take a trip back in time to the Mediterranean world during the Bronze Age to learn about the origins of the purple dye.
Making purple: A process as slow as a snail?
We can trace the earliest use of purple to the Bronze Age, in the Phoenician city of Tyre. Hence the dye was known as Tyrian purple.
Phoenicians lived in the modern-day Levant region (Israel, Syria, and Lebanon). In the Bronze Age, the Phoenicians dominated the Mediterranean trade routes, making them a naval superpower.
During the 15th century BC, enterprising Phoenicians discovered Murex Snails, a species of sea snail, that exude mucus which we can use to make a color.
The dye was purple.
Recent evidence reveals that the Minoans were aware of the dye’s manufacturing long before the Phoenicians.
The Phoenicians pioneered the large-scale trade of purple. Though the Phoenicians were eager to trade their new discovery with neighboring civilizations, they kept its production a well-guarded secret.
The Phoenicians were great at keeping the production process a secret, but today we know how they made purple.
Sea snails’ natural response to danger is the discharge of mucus, which is used to make the purple color. To protect itself, the snail releases a fluid whenever it is under threat.
Poking snails causes them to secrete mucus. Another process of extracting the purple dye was to crush the snails.
In Aristotle’s book, History of Animals, he explains the technique of extracting purple from sea snails.
Pliny the Elder, a Roman philosopher and historian, discusses in great detail the extraction of purple from snails in his work, Natural History.
According to Pliny, the snail’s vein was first cut, and a waxy substance was recovered. Then salt was added to the snail “juice”. The dye makers steeped the salt and liquid mixture for three days.
After three days of marinating, the mixture was ready to be boiled in tin vessels over an open flame.
Once the mixture started boiling, a liquid floated to the top. The liquid was the purple dye, which was slowly extracted after skimming using a funnel.
The dye makers boiled the mixture for several days, and Pliny mentions after the tenth day the mixture becomes liquified with the flesh of the animal dissolving.
The liquified mixture was de-greased, to obtain a high-quality purple.
Purple wasn’t easy to manufacture, as you can tell from the description of the extraction procedure. It was time-consuming and the amount of dye produced was less.
You could say the process was as slow as a snail!
A Tunisian woman recently attempted to make the color using the procedure outlined by Pliny. She used 120 pounds of sea snails to make 1 gram of purple!
Purple extraction was not only time-consuming but also foul-smelling! The stench of boiling snails in massive vats for ten days was terrible.
So you can imagine how hard people had to work in ancient times to make purple. The color’s rarity made it expensive, a luxury item.
Luxury goods were in demand among the rich.
The nobility used the dye to color their clothes, which would make them stand out from the rest of the people.
But why was purple so sought after by the royals?
Tyrian purple: The color of the nobility
Purple, unlike other colors, did not fade. Instead, it became brighter with use. Since purple clothes wouldn’t discolor with use, the aristocrats were willing to pay a premium for the dye.
Purple became a popular color among the elite in the Greco-Roman world. Purple dyes were worth their weight in silver, according to Greek historian Theopompus, who lived in the 4th century BC.
The Eastern Roman Empire, popularly known as the Byzantine empire, was one of the leading patrons of purple production during the Middle Ages. Purple with gold letters was used to write gospel manuscripts.
After the Normans sacked Constantinople in 1204, the hue lost some of its former glory.
Purple regained prominence during the Italian Renaissance period, and later European nations chose it as a regal color.
Despite being a royal color, the nobles opted not to use purple dye in their flags since it was expensive to produce. Flags and standards had to be mass-produced, and there wasn’t enough dye.
Nobles must have thought “Nah, why to put it on the flag when we can use it on a nice dress?”
By the time William Perkins invented a method for mass-producing purple dyes in 1856, the basic symbols and colors of most nation-states had taken shape. For example, the flag of England and the Flag of Genoa, which is the St George’s cross, have medieval origins when the purple dye was scarce.
Purple was the color of the aristocracy, which meant that the masses could not relate to it.
That’s why society’s ruling classes picked symbols everyone could identify with.
Thus, purple never gained popularity with the masses. Hence it was looked over as a color choice for flags