Murex | murex | Murex troscheli | Venus comb murex |
They were clad in skins, lived on meat and milk, and the only manufacture connected with their name is that of the purple dye that became famous from the time of Augustus, and was made from the purple shellfish Murex brandaris found on the coast, apparently both in the Syrtes and on the Atlantic.
The ruins of Porphyreon should be found near Belus, the Nahr Namein, in the sands of which may still be seen the murex brandaris and the murex trunculus (thorny shell fish), from which is extracted the famous purple dye of Tyre, and which gave its name to Porphyreon.
Bolinus brandaris (originally called Murex brandaris by Linnaeus), and commonly known as the purple dye murex or the spiny dye-murex, is a species of medium-sized predatory sea snail, an edible marine gastropod mollusk in the family Muricidae, the murex snails or the rock snails.