The palaces of Crete and their builders . t the Phoenicians invented purpleand carried it about the Mediterranean. This is another error ofthe philologists, who trusted too much to Homer. Odysseusand Telemachus had, like other heroes, a mantle of purple ; andcarpets, leather, and ivory were frequently dyed purple by thewomen of Meonia and Caria. ^ In the villa of Hagia Triada and elsewhere vases have beenfound bearing a design representing a net and shells of the murex,whence was extracted the purple dye. We know from Pliny ~ ^ Iliad, \\\ 142 : r/c - iXeipurra yvy)) (poiviKi j-iuiri] \ M//ojtt
The palaces of Crete and their builders . t the Phoenicians invented purpleand carried it about the Mediterranean. This is another error ofthe philologists, who trusted too much to Homer. Odysseusand Telemachus had, like other heroes, a mantle of purple ; andcarpets, leather, and ivory were frequently dyed purple by thewomen of Meonia and Caria. ^ In the villa of Hagia Triada and elsewhere vases have beenfound bearing a design representing a net and shells of the murex,whence was extracted the purple dye. We know from Pliny ~ ^ Iliad, \\\ 142 : r/c - iXeipurra yvy)) (poiviKi j-iuiri] \ M//ojtt >/£ Kncfpa.^ Pliny, ix. 61. DRESS OF THE WOMEN 143 that these shellfish were brought up from the sea in fishing nets,and he says that they have usually seven spines ; in the Cretanvases we see seven spines indicated on the shell of these Kouphonisi (the ancient Leuke) Mr. Bosanquet found a bankof murex shells with Kamares ^ vases close by. This proves thatin Crete the manufacture of purple was earlier than the Phoenician. FIG. 64.—VASE WITH DESIGN REPRESEXTIXG A NET WITH SHELLS OFTHE MOLLUSC FROM WHICH THE PURPLE DYE WAS OBTAINED. civilisation. At Palaikastro, too, deposits of murex were foundnear vases of the middle Minoan period. This year I fished up a number of shells of Murex trunculusin the port of Candia and on the shore near by. I put them ona dish and collected some drops of purple, which the animal Bosanquet, Some Late Minoan Vases found in Greece, HellenicStudies^ xxiv., 144 PALACES OF CRETE AXD THEIR BUILDERS exudes like a tear. In the Mycenaean vases the tentacle whichthe fish draws in in order to close the shell is shown ; when it istranquil the murex moves like a snail. Pliny says that purplewas extracted from several kinds of shellfish shaped like thetriton, and describes the preparation of this dye in leaden vases. When I examined the cists in the magazines of Knossos Ifound that some of them were lined with lead. This gave methe idea
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