Byzantium (color)

The color Byzantium is a particular dark tone of purple. It originates in modern times, and, despite its name, it should not be confused with Tyrian purple (hue rendering), the color historically used by Roman and Byzantine emperors. The latter, often also referred to as "Tyrian red", is more reddish in hue, and is in fact often depicted as closer to crimson than purple. The first recorded use of byzantium as a color name in English was in 1926.^[1]

For other uses, see Byzantium (disambiguation).

Byzantium
Color coordinates
Hex triplet	#702963
sRGBB (r, g, b)	(112, 41, 99)
HSV (h, s, v)	(311°, 63%, 44%)
CIELChuv (L, C, h)	(29, 44, 319°)
Source	ISCC-NBS
ISCC–NBS descriptor	Deep reddish purple
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

Variations of byzantium

Byzantine

Byzantine
Color coordinates
Hex triplet	#BD33A4
sRGBB (r, g, b)	(189, 51, 164)
HSV (h, s, v)	(311°, 73%, 74%)
CIELChuv (L, C, h)	(47, 86, 321°)
Source	/Maerz and Paul[2]
ISCC–NBS descriptor	Vivid reddish purple
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

The color Byzantine is displayed at right.

The color Byzantine is a rich tone of medium purple toned toward magenta.

The first recorded use of byzantine as a color name in English was in 1924.^[3]

Dark byzantium

Dark Byzantium
Color coordinates
Hex triplet	#5D3954
sRGBB (r, g, b)	(93, 57, 84)
HSV (h, s, v)	(315°, 39%, 36%)
CIELChuv (L, C, h)	(29, 23, 321°)
Source	ISCC-NBS
ISCC–NBS descriptor	Dark reddish purple
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

The color dark Byzantium is displayed at right.

References

1. Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 191; Color Sample of Byzantium: Page 111 Plate 44 Color Sample K7
2. The color displayed in the color box above matches the color called Byzantine in the 1930 book by Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill; the color Byzantine is displayed on page 125, Plate 51, Color Sample K8.
3. Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 191; Color Sample of Byzantine: Page 125 Plate 51 Color Sample K8 Note: This color sample matches the color shown above as "byzantine".

See also

• List of colors