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Lapis lazuli can vary between blue and purple-blue, and according to some sources the preferred shade of lapis lazuli in the Near East was purple-blue. [24] However, Mesopotamian mythology asserted that visible sky is a layer of lapis lazuli stone underlying Heaven, suggesting a sky-blue color for the stone. [35]
As in Graeco-Roman times, purple was reserved for the royal family; other colours in various contexts conveyed information as to class and clerical or government rank. Lower-class people wore simple tunics but still had the preference for bright colours found in all Byzantine fashions.
The Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in a 945 carved ivory. Traditionally, born in the purple [1] (sometimes "born to the purple") was a category of members of royal families born during the reign of their parent.
It was at one point supposedly restricted for the use of Roman or Byzantine emperors, although in a letter of Saint Jerome of 384, he "writes scornfully of the wealthy Christian women whose books are written in gold on purple vellum, and clothed with gems". [1]
In optics, violet is a spectral color (referring to the color of different single wavelengths of light), whereas purple is the color of various combinations of red and blue (or violet) light, [5] [6] some of which humans perceive as similar to violet. In common usage, both terms are used to refer to a variety of colors between blue and red in hue.
Byzantine currency, money used in the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of the West, consisted of mainly two types of coins: gold solidi and hyperpyra and a variety of clearly valued bronze coins. By the 15th century, the currency was issued only in debased silver stavrata and minor copper coins with no gold issue. [ 1 ]
In the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, the traditional Roman chariot-racing factions continued to play a prominent role in mass entertainment, religion and politics for several centuries. Supporters of the Blue teams vied with supporters of the Greens for control of foreign, domestic and religious policies, and Imperial subsidies for themselves.
This tradition can trace its origin to the Byzantine Empire, from circa 500 AD, where blue was "the color of an empress". A more practical explanation for the use of this color is that in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, the blue pigment was derived from the rock lapis lazuli, a stone imported from Afghanistan of greater value than gold. Beyond ...