It continued to be produced through to modern times, until 1992 when it was placed under the protection of the EU Habitat Directive. The natural colour is a greenish brown, transformed into a golden brown by cleaning and treating with lemon juice. An adult mussel can produce 2–3g of the fibres, which is reduced by about 80% during processing. Sea silk fibres are harvested from the mussel Pinna nobilis, which attaches itself to the seabed using these fibres. Sea silk and purple dye were both difficult to obtain and considered valuable and prestigious in antiquity. The volume brings together several different approaches including archaeology, experimentation, scientific analysis, and terminology. Sixteen papers are presented, the first half focussing on sea silk, and the second half on purple dye.
This volume presents the proceedings of a conference held in Lecce, Italy, in 2013, on the subject of two sea “treasures”: the beard fibres of the fan mussel, used to weave small scale textiles known as sea silk, and purple dye extracted from the hypobranchial glands of certain molluscs.
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