Behind every drop of Tyrian purple is a hand that knows the sea, the shell, and the silence between labor and art.
This is not industry. This is devotion. Mohamed Ghassen Nouira preserves an ancient craft that once clothed emperors — now revived for those who seek truth in pigment, history in texture, and meaning in making.
He does not dye fabric. He awakens color from its slumber.
Empyrex is honored to partner with Mohamed Ghassen Nouira, the founder of Argaman in Tunisia — not as a supplier, but as a fellow guardian of sacred tradition. We are delighted to work with him to bring authentic Tyrian purple to the world, preserving its legacy for future generations.
In 1993, a history-class anecdote about a dye that once forged empires took root in the mind of a fourteen-year-old in Carthage. Fourteen years later, on the same shore, he found the answer oozing from a cracked murex shell.
The Journey
Tyrian purple — extracted from the glands of predatory Muricidae sea snails — was the most coveted luxury good of the ancient world: a dye so rare it crowned emperors, cloaked Cleopatra's royal barge, and was restricted to imperial use under penalty of death in Byzantium. Production had been lost for centuries.
Working from the same Carthaginian coastline where the dye was first perfected in the 2nd millennium BC, Nouira spent nearly two decades reverse-engineering it — tracking how lunar phases and light exposure shift the raw secretion through a spectrum of blues and violets before it sets as true imperial purple. The result is the world's largest catalogued collection of authentic Carthaginian purple extracts: more than 100 pigments, indexed by blend and light exposure.
"As many shades of purple as there are stars hanging from the heavens."
30+Years Pursuing the Craft
100+Catalogued Pigments
6Countries Exhibited
2022Argaman Founded
The Mission
Argaman — launched in 2022 as the world's first dyeing company dedicated entirely to Royal purple from murex — exists to keep an artisanal lineage alive in an age of synthetic, automated production. Nouira has hosted visitors from every continent at his Carthage workshop, and partners with museums, universities, and cultural institutions worldwide to bring the craft to new audiences, including school programs designed to show children that rigorous, independent self-study can rediscover what history left behind.
Selected Milestones
1993
First encounters the story of Tyrian purple in a history class, age 14.
Sep 2007
Discovers a cracked murex shell oozing purple on the shores of Carthage — the start of the research.
2009–2013
Produces first blue pigment from H. trunculus; begins dyeing trials with dried murex glands.
2015–2016
First public exhibition, Bardo National Museum, as part of the Cart'Art project (two-year run).
2018
Djerba: workshop for the German archaeological mission under Prof. Stefan Ritter (LMU Munich), ~50 historians and archaeologists from four countries attending. Brussels: week-long "Du pourpre au pourpre" symposium, workshops alongside honoree Dominique Cardon.
2019
Workshop for the crew of the Phoenicia ship ahead of their Atlantic crossing aboard a reconstructed Phoenician vessel.
2020
Develops the alternation technique — sequential blending of fresh murex juices from two or three species to produce extracts ranging from amethyst to deep clotted-blood purple.
Mar 2022
Argaman launches — the world's first dyeing company dedicated entirely to Royal purple from murex.
2023
British Museum: contributes shells, dyed fabrics, and extracts to Luxury and Power: Greece to Persia. American School of Tunis: live-dye workshops for sixth graders. Djerba: second workshop with Prof. Stefan Ritter, including a live dye-vat demonstration.
Apr 2024
Permanent exhibition of Carthaginian purple extracts at the Abguss Museum, Munich, with Dr. Stefan Ritter (Institute of Classical Archaeology, LMU Munich).
Sep 2024
Geneva: collaboration with Ateliers Héritier (art restoration specialists) reconstructing imperial purple and royal blue dye vats, and field research precipitating pigments with kaolin, murex lime, cuttlefish bone, alum, and other historical mediums — 16 samples tested for ancient purpurissum production methods. Lecture and live workshop at MAMCO, Geneva.
Apr 2025
Live demonstrations at the ancient site of Kerkouane and the port of Bizerte (Hippo Acra), national patrimony month, attended by Tunisia's Minister of Cultural Affairs and the regional governor.
Jan 2026
Exhibit with the Southern Minnesota Museum of Natural History, pairing Argaman's extracts with lapis lazuli, azurite, malachite, and cochineal — built for rural school outreach.
Mar 2026
Launches Empyrex, Argaman's online platform with a full color chart of 100+ extracts and ordering for North American clients.
Apr–Jun 2026
Exhibitions and collaborations span the WMB Weinviertel Museum (Austria), the Museum of Plaster Casts of Ancient Art (Munich, with Dr. Stefan Ritter's Meninx project), the Qatari Book Fair, and a permanent installation at the Archaeological Museum of Nice, unveiled during European Archaeology Days 2026.
Argaman has been featured by international media including:
Reuters
Middle East Eye
The Arab Weekly
Arab News
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Founder Bio & Milestones
Mohamed Ghassen Nouira — Argaman · Full story & timeline · PDF
Download PDF
Recognition & Awards
Cedar Award — Irish Lebanese Cultural Foundation, Ireland 2022
Invited Presenter — British Museum, London, May 2022
Featured — Museum of Modern Art, Geneva
🛃 Import & Customs Notice: Empyrex ships internationally from Tunisia. Import duties, customs fees, and taxes are not included in product prices and are the sole responsibility of the buyer.