Purple: Matching Headings

Read the text below. Match choices (A-G) to (1-5). There are two choices you do not need to use. Write your answers on the answer sheet.

A Magnetic waves within the material

B High temperature a desirable product

C Exceptionally for the wealthy

D Precious stone lengthens life

E The Oriental record of application

F Imitating a natural product

G Glass-making process is a by-product of a synthetic alternative

1. Purple has long been associated with luxury, not least because of its rarity in nature. Tyrian (or Phoenician) purple—painstakingly extracted from sea snails boiled for days in lead vats — was so heavily restricted to the elites of ancient Rome that even the word purple became synonymous with the emperor. Hence the saying “donning the purple” for becoming the ruler of Rome.

2. It wasn’t until 1856 that a chemist finally stumbled (by accident) upon a synthetic alternative, which according to the fashion of the time he called ‘mauve’. Immediately, it was seized upon by the rich and famous, by Empress Eugénie in France and by Queen Victoria in Britain.

3. Purple was similarly exalted in the East. Han purple was no less synonymous with nobility in ancient China than Tyrian purple in ancient Rome. But this Chinese purple was a pigment, not a dye, and it had a far less variable hue. It is thought to have been created as early as 800 BC, but the most famous examples of its use date back to around 220 BC when it was used to paint the Terracotta Army and murals in the tomb of the first emperor Qin Shi Huang at Xi’an.

4. After that, it disappears from the historical record entirely. And it wasn’t until the 1990s that scientists synthesized a new batch, the first in almost 2000 years. The process to make the copper barium silicate pigment was so intricate, though, that they couldn’t believe it was discovered by accident; surely the Chinese had been taught. For one thing, it involved the grinding of precise quantities of various materials. And for another, it required heating to between 900 and 1,100 degrees Celsius.

5. But it differed substantially enough from Egyptian blue to rule out cross-cultural knowledge-sharing. Perhaps, since it contains barium, Han purple was a by-product of the glass-making process—discovered by Taoist alchemists trying to synthesize white jade. This would certainly explain its appeal to the immortality-obsessed Qin Shi Huang in particular, since white jade was linked to health and longevity.