Imperial Purple Was First Produced by the Phoenicians

Tyrian Purple, or royal purple, imperial purple or imperial dye — a purple-red dye made from the mucus of one of several species of Murex snail — was first produced by the Phoenicians in the city of Tyre (now Lebanon) for use as a fabric dye around 1200 BCE. The pigment was expensive and complex to produce, and items colored with it became associated with power and wealth. The Greek historian Theopompus, writing in the 4th century BCE, reported that "purple for dyes fetched its weight in silver at Colophon [in Asia Minor]." It's production was continued by the Greeks and Romans until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. 

"The name Phoenicians, like Latin Poenī (adj. poenicus, later pūnicus), comes from Greek Φοίνικες (Phoínikes), attested since Homer and influenced by phoînix "Tyrian purple, crimson; murex" (itself from phoinós "blood red"). The word stems from Mycenaean po-ni-ki-jo, po-ni-ki, ultimately borrowed from Ancient Egyptian fnḥw (fenkhu) "Asiatics, Semites". The folk-etymological association of phoiniki with phoînix mirrors that in Akkadian which tiedkinaḫni, kinaḫḫi "Canaan; Phoenicia" to kinaḫḫu "red-dyed wool". The land was natively known as knʿn (cf. Eblaite ca-na-na-um, ca-na-na), remembered in the 6th century BC by Hecataeus under the Greek form Chna(χνα), and its people as the knʿny (cf. Punic chanani, Hebrew kanaʿani)" (Wikipedia article Phoenicia, accessed 03-20-2014).