Muricidae

In fact, the only other people who would produce it in any quantity were the Carthaginians, who started out as a Phoenician colony specifically from Tyre.

The costly secret of the purple lay within the glands of predatory sea snails belonging to the Muricidae family.

The logistics involved in extracting this material were staggering, requiring meticulous, sustained labor on an industrial scale.

Ancient producers estimated that to yield a mere single gram of the pure pigment required the processing of anywhere from 8,000 to 12,000 mollusks.