“First of all, Pliny was most definitely not discussing techeiles. He was discussing the Murex Trunculus and was in no way soseir the chachmei yisrael.”
ummm well like I said I looked up Pliny and it is in Plin. Nat. 9.60 and let me give you some details of pliny’s description of the murex. I got it from some translation online that I found through google.
Keep in mind the techeiles was valuable to the Umos haolam.
????? ? ?, ?????? ?? ?, ?? ?? ?, ??? ?? ??, ??”? ?, ? ?, ???? ? ?, ?? ? ??, ??”? ?????? ??? ??? ??’ ??, ??? ??., ??????? ??
1. “In Asia the best purple is that of Tyre.”
hmmm… ???”? ?????, ??????? ?? ????? ??? ???? ????? ?? ?????? ?? ??? ?? ????? ??? ????? ???? ????? (??? ??., ????? ?., ???? ?’ ???? ????? ?? ??, ?????? ????? ??).
2. “…the colour itself is harsh, of a greenish hue, and strongly resembling that of the sea when in a tempestuous state.”
3…. “colour of clotted blood, and is of a blackish hue to the sight”, ????”? ??? ???? ???? ????
4 …”the habit of paying enormous prices for them”…
Also lishitas patur that the gemara will only give us simanim that identify the murex, like domeh lyam and domeh ldag ( once in 70 years which is a nes lfi haradvaz) than what in the world is the gemara telling us ubdamo tzovin techeiles ( dam can mean any juice as in ?? ????? ??????? ??? ??? ??? ???? ?? ?? ????? ????? ????? ?? ???) how is that a siman that its blood is used to dye techeiles, isn’t that what we are looking for? ella mai it is telling us that it is used to dye tcheiles as in what the umos haolam used
I can go on and on but being that the yaavetz and the shiltei hagiborim (the rishon) already assumed that the dye mentioned in the chachmei umos haolam is techeiles, I will be soimech on them.
But lshitas Patur aval assur, there were two snails that died blue of the exact same color of techeiles both were a strong dye, both were expensive, both were found in the same location, both seemingly fit with the gemaras simanim (yes it is domeh lyam and domeh ldag as I stated before) yet chazal specifically warned us of a plant which was similar and made no explicit mention of this Murex which is so likely to be mistaken for techeiles. In fact they even wrote in the tosefta ???? ??? ???? ??? ?? ?????? , ??? ?? ????? ????? which is mashma that as long as it is chilazon that works it is kasher. hmmm, and do you still hold we won’t say safek deoraysa?