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What seafaring people did the ancient Greeks call the "purple people"?




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Answer: the Phoenicians

The name Phoenician comes from the Greek phoinix, purple. The Phoenicians were so named because they exported a famed purple wool; the dye for which they derived from a shellfish that inhabited the coastal waters of the eastern Mediterranean.


Please note that these are draft questions for the board game MooT.
If you spot an error or disagree with anything I've said here,
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(the Mootguy)

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