Colors with Undefined Names

8. Byzantium Color 127 - #702963

The color byzantium is a dark tone of purple. The first recorded use of byzantium as a color name in English was in 1926. The source of this color is: ISCC-NBS Dictionary of Color Names (1955) - Color Sample of Byzantium (color sample #238).

Byzantium was the ancient Greek city on the site that later became Constantinople (modern Istanbul). It was founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 657 BC. The city was rebuilt and reinaugurated as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine - in 330 AD and subsequently renamed Constantinople. The city remained the capital of the Byzantine Empire until 1453, when it was conquered and became the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Since the establishment of modern Turkey in 1923, the Turkish name of the city, Istanbul, has replaced the name Constantinople in the West.