Why is the color purple associated with royalty?
Because the dye for purple used to come from Sea Urchins and other Mollusks and it was very difficult to obtain and required vast amounts of harvested Urchins that required hours of processing to get the purple dye. Therefore it was VERY expensive to produce – so much so that only royalty and the very wealthy could afford it. From WikiPedia: “The actual color of Tyrian purple, the original color purple from which the name purple is derived, is the color of a dye made from a mollusk that in classical antiquity became a symbol of royalty because only the very wealthy could afford it. Therefore, Tyrian purple is also called imperial purple. Tyrian purple may have been discovered as early as the time of the Minoan civilization. Alexander the Great (when giving imperial audiences as the emperor of the Macedonian Empire), the emperors of the Seleucid Empire, and the kings of Ptolemaic Egypt wore Tyrian purple. The imperial robes of Roman emperors were Tyrian purple trimmed in metallic gold t
