![]() The stadium had two entrances, a tunnel running to the interior from the outside, probably the entrance for the athletes. Most of the stadium has degraded over time however, seven rows of seating still exist and are preserved today. Carved from a natural U-shaped hillside, the stadium held up to 11,000 people at one time. The rock-carved stadium is 230 meters long and about 40 meters wide, similar to the dimensions of the Greek Olympic stadium. The Phoenician stadium (4.22) was built in 1500 BCE and lay 200 meters northeast of the temple. Composed of stones and tapered towards the top, the burial towers, called spindles, jut upright out of the ground at 7.5 meters high. The center of the court held a sacred spring covered with a portico. There are two critical architectural remains at Amrit, the Phoenician temple and the stadium.Ī large court carved from the bedrock measuring 47 by 49 meters and over 3 meters deep, was excavated in the 1950s, the remains for the Temple of Amrit (4.21). Two rivers run through the city, providing easy access to the sea for the seafaring Phoenician traders. The ancient Phoenician city of Amrit lies on the Mediterranean Sea in what is today, Syria. Their settlements were politically independent city-states, similar to the Greeks, and their alphabet became the ancestor to most present-day European alphabets. They also invented the "bireme," a multi-manned powered boat to easily traverse throughout the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians had a monopoly of the color purple made from a divertive of the Murex snail, selling highly prized purple fabrics along the trade routes. ![]() They were known throughout the Mediterranean as the "Purple People" which referred to the color of the clothes they wore. Eventually, some of the settlements even extended along the coast of North Africa. The Phoenicians were an ancient civilization living on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in what is now Lebanon. The objects in this project echo shapes such as the Roman imperial helmet, Christian thurible (used to burn incense for worship) and modern-day perfume bottles.\) This project is the second installment of Naama Agassi’s “Artificial Regality” series, which examines the changing status of colors. Today, purple is associated with two contradictory arenas: On one hand, it is the color of faith and piety, worn for example by Roman Catholic and Anglican bishops on the other hand, it is strongly identified with mass-market beauty products and cosmetics, ranging from cheap nail polish and perfume bottles to fake eyelashes and powder brushes. The status of the color purple was completely altered in 1856, when the English chemist William Henry Perkin accidentally discovered a way to artificially synthesise a bright purple dye. As always in design, supply and demand generate desire and prestige. It was considered so regal and holy that various laws prohibited lower classes from wearing it. By the third century BC, Tyrian purple was worth more than gold, and it became the color of kings, emperors and priests across the Mediterranean – from Israelite priests to Roman emperors and Byzantine rulers. It took as many as 250,000 snails to yield just one ounce of usable dye. It was produced from the mucous of marine snails that lived around the Phoenician cities of Tyre and Sidon (now in Lebanon), giving this expensive dye its name: Tyrian purple. This is because until it became artificially manufactured, its production was a lengthy and laborious task. In the past, the purple was a coveted color used to denote wealth and power.
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