Tyros (nymph)

Tyros got her name from , the Greek exonym of the Phoenician city, which in the Phoenician language was called 𐤑𐤓 (Ṣūr). == Mythology ==

According to the legend, Tyros was a Phoenician nymph dwelling by the Levantine shore near Tyre. Her exact parentage is not known, but she came to be courted by the divine hero Heracles, the son of Zeus and Alcmene. One day Heracles brought his dog along on his way to meet her, as was custom. The dog got hungry, and attacked a sea creature protruding from a shell on the beach, and ate it. The blood and flesh of the murex snail stained the dog’s mouth red and purple. Heracles and the dog then continued their way to meet the nymph. When Heracles finally reached Tyros, she took a look at the dog’s reddish purple snout, and was thrilled by the brilliance and vibrancy of the magnificent colour. She declared to Heracles that she would not have him unless he brought her a gown dyed with that same colour. Heracles then tracked down the sea snails, extracted the pigment, and gave Tyros a splendid purple gown as a gift. Thereafter, he was forever honoured as the inventor of the tyrian purple dye. In an alternative account of the legend, Heracles brought the dye to King Phoenix of Tyre, who then decreed that no man bar the king himself was allowed to wear such virtuous clothing worthy only of royalty. == Significance ==

n coin depicting the legend of the dog biting the sea snail. In antiquity, the city of Tyre was famous for its industrial production of tyrian purple, an extremely rare and expensive dye; tyrian purple was renowned for its unique beauty and lightfast qualities. It was particularly cherished because the colour did not fade easily, but in fact became even brighter with weathering and sunlight. Thousands of Murex trunculus and Murex brandaris shellfish were needed to produce one gram of the dye. The rare colour was reserved for the use of royalty and nobility only, as exhibited in the version with king Phoenix. By the fourth century AD, only the Roman emperors were permitted to wear Tyrian purple, and its production was strictly controlled in the succeeding Eastern Roman Empire, where a child born to a reigning emperor was dubbed porphyrogenitus, literally translating to "born in the purple". == See also ==