2. La Parisienne
3. Women of Stone and Clay and Bronze
4. Elemental Helen -- She-Gods and She-Devils
5. Royal Purple -- The Colour of Congealed Blood
Epilogue -- Myth, History and Historia
Appendix Five: Royal Purple -- The Colour of Congealed Blood
Matala, Crete: westward facing; bay on south shore of Crete; nice way stop between Troy and Sparta for Helen on her way home after the Trojan War
Kommos: archaeological site; a sizeable Bronze Age port; excavations only began in 1976;
Perhaps it was the port servicing the palatial complex of Phaistos which lies 6 km inland.
A center for the production of purple.
Murex: a snail; harvest, dismemberment, and then boiling -- sometimes in urine.
12,000 snails to colour the hem of a single garment.
Pliny described the dye from murex as being the colour of congealed blood.
Late Bronze Age: Hittites, Egyptians, and Mycenaeans -- all three societies -- purple was the colour of royalty.
Linear B tablets may provide one of our first records of the concept of Royal Purple, on a table which describes what seem to be textiles as porphyreos, 'of the color purple', and wanakteros, 'royal, kingly'.
Helen spent the war weaving, ten years, as did Penelope, ten years fighting off suitors when Odysseus was on his way home.
Troy was famous for textile production and tons of murex shells have been in Troy.
