On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 14 January 2023. This purple cabbage slaw is about the color. Queen Elizabeth II in March 2015.

Purple is any of a variety of colors with hue between red and blue. Purple has long been associated with royalty, originally because Tyrian purple dye, made from the mucus secretion of a species of snail, was extremely expensive in antiquity. According to contemporary surveys in Europe and the United States, purple is the color most often associated with rarity, royalty, magic, mystery, and piety. Tyrian purple dye manufactured in classical antiquity from a mucus secreted by the spiny dye-murex snail. This CIE chromaticity diagram highlights the line of purples at its base, running from the violet corner near the left to the red corner at the right. Purple is closely associated with violet.

In common usage, both refer to a variety of colors between blue and red in hue. Purple first appeared in prehistoric art during the Neolithic era. The artists of Pech Merle cave and other Neolithic sites in France used sticks of manganese and hematite powder to draw and paint animals and the outlines of their own hands on the walls of their caves. The process of making the dye was long, difficult and expensive. Thousands of the tiny snails had to be found, their shells cracked, the snail removed.

Mountains of empty shells have been found at the ancient sites of Sidon and Tyre. The snails were left to soak, then a tiny gland was removed and the juice extracted and put in a basin, which was placed in the sunlight. There, a remarkable transformation took place. Tyrian purple became the color of kings, nobles, priests and magistrates all around the Mediterranean. Etruscan tomb painting from the 4th century BC shows a nobleman wearing a deep purple and embroidered toga. In Ancient Rome, the Toga praetexta was an ordinary white toga with a broad purple stripe on its border.