Hi my virtual friends, when you read the title of this article you probably thought to yourself "hey really why no country has a purple flag? But don't worry, when you read this article, it will be clearer to you why this is so ... There are about 190 countries today and none of them have a purple flag on their flag ...
When we look through history, purple has never represented a kingdom, empire or state. So what's wrong with purple? This color is very popular today, so the question is why no country has it on its flag?
The answer is really simple - purple was too expensive. Namely, no country has a purple color on the flag because until 1800 this color was as expensive as its weight in gold. Consequently, it was often associated with power, might and wealth. Even Queen Elizabeth I forbade everyone, except close members of the royal family, to wear this color.
The color purple was highly valued because it was rare. The original purple was obtained from a small sea snail that could only be found in the area of today's Lebanon. And not only was it difficult to get the color, but it took about 10,000 of these sea snails to make one gram of purple. For that reason, only the rich and royal families could afford this color.
Also, the color purple often represented spirituality and holiness because the ancient rulers who wore it were considered deities or God's messengers on earth.
However, sometimes this color was expensive even for the richest. The Roman ruler Aurelian, who ruled in the 3rd century, did not allow his wife to buy scarves and cloaks dyed purple because that pleasure cost him 3 times his weight in gold! By some estimates, 350g of purple cost as much as three piles of gold, which today would be roughly $ 56,000.
Since the price of paint was astronomically high, even the richest countries could not afford to have this color on their flag. The accessibility of purple to all humans began only around 1856, when eighteen-year-old English chemist William Henry Perkin accidentally made a synthetic purple dye while trying to make a cure for malaria.
From that moment, the mass production of purple cloth began, and those of royal blood no longer valued this color. For this reason, it can be found today on some of the flags created only after the 1900.
The popularity of the purple color does not stop even in 2020, whether in clothing combinations, furniture or decorative cosmetics, and it is simply unbelievable that it used to be so expensive.
Thank you for reading my article ... I hope that you enjoyed ...
I send you a big greetings!
I had always known that purple was an expensive dye but i guess i never wondered if flags ever had them as a country's color