CHAT: Indigo and Tyrian Purple/Blue (was: CHAT: Orange)

On Wed, 5 Jun 2002 13:59:16 -0400 Roger Mills <romilly@...> writes:
> >En réponse à Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>:
> >> Well, in *English*, indigo IS a kind of blue, whereas orange is
> not a
> >> kind of red.
> >Well, the strangeness of English is getting worse! What's the point
> of calling it "indigo" if it's a kind of blue?
> Indigo IIRC is one of the oldest plant-derived dyes.  Originally I
> think,
> Levis(TM) jeans were indigo, but we've always called them "blue
> jeans"
-

If i remember correctly, in the Talmud it says that wool dyed with
|tekheilet| (Tyrian purple) is visually indistinguishable from wool dyed
with the dye of the indigo plant.  They're both sort of sky-blue, not
really purple at all.  Although the way Tyrian 'purple' works is that in
a certain part of the processing process, it becomes more blue the more
you expose it to sunlight.  So if you make it into dye immediately upon
removing it from the murex, it'll dye wool purple;  if you wait a while
and expose it to sunlight, it'll dye wool sky-blue.

ObConWhatever:
the Rokbeigalm know how to process murex; the seacreature itself is
called |zanil|, the dye extracted from it is |zan|, and the sky-blue
fabric you get from dyeing with |zan| is called |tekhezan| (from |tekei|
"blue").  there's also |rihghmazan|, which is a redder/purpler-hued
|zan|.


-Stephen (Steg)
"got rice, b---h?  got rice?
  got food?  got soup?  got spice?"
     ~ "got rice" (asian pride)