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No. Not me, it’s my little son. He asked me why do we read in the Torah constantly ???? ????? ?????? ???, blue, purple and red wool. Shouldn’t the order be blue, red and then purple – after all purple is a mixture of blue and red. What do I tell him?
Send him to me.
The order is exactly in order of the color wheel. First is blue, then comes purple, after that is red. Purple is a color all its own, although it is possible to get it through mixing. The Argaman was not made through mixing. The colors are not compound-colors.
I just saw a whole kuntres dedicated to the question of the identity of argaman. From a cursory look, there seems to be quite some confusion.
I once read a novel about the Aztec Indians, in which there was a discussion about the search for a permanent purple dye which came from the excretion of a certain type of snail (sound familiar?). The author, Gary Jennings, is known for his extensive historical research to give authenticity to his works. Perhaps, like the chilazon for techeiles, there is likewise a sea animal from which the purple pigment was derived. Anyone know the origins of argaman?
There were several sources for purple. Finding a source which was used doesn’t establish that its the argaman we’re referring to, and so we turn to our mekoros from Chazal and meforshim. In which, as I’ve said, there are very conflicting indications, and it’s a whole sugya – “lo al regel achas”.
It’s the order of blending. Blue on one side, red on the other side, purple in the middle.
Almost all the meforshim define argaman as red not purple. (Perhaps one could argue that they didn’t have a good Hebrew word for purple.)
However, Philo and Josephus who saw the argaman of the Bais Hamikdash, describe it as purple.
If it is in fact purple, then it almost definitely comes from Murex snails. Even if it’s red it could come from Murex snails.
Also, this is all assuming that Techeiles is blue. But the Chavos Yair says that Techeiles is purple, and the Yerushalmi and several midrashim, imply that Techeiles is green.
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