It was formerly used to produce an eponymous crimson carmine dyestuff known in Armenia as vordan karmir (Armenian: որդան կարմիր, literally "worm's red") and historically in Persia as kirmiz.

[3][4][6][9][10][11][12][13][excessive citations] It is possible that Armenian cochineal dye was in use as early as 714 BC, when the Neo-Assyrian king Sargon II was recorded as seizing red textiles as spoils of war from the kingdoms of Urartu (the geographic predecessor of Armenia) and Kilhu.

[3][4][17] In the Early Middle Ages the Armenian historians Ghazar Parpetsi and Movses Khorenatsi wrote specifically of a worm-produced dyestuff from the Ararat region.

[6] The Armenians themselves used vordan karmir to produce dyes for textiles (including oriental rugs) and pigments for illuminated manuscripts and church frescos.

[6] It has been estimated that on the order of a half million dried Porphyrophora hamelii insects were required to dye one kilogram (2.2 lb) of silk crimson during this period.

[citation needed] In 1833 the German naturalist Johann Friedrich von Brandt suggested the scientific name Porphyrophora hamelii after the Russian physician, traveler, and historian of German descent Iosif Khristianovich Gamel (Josef Hamel) (ru), who visited the Ararat plain in the early 1830s and wrote a report about the "cochineal" insects living there.

[7][30][37] During the Soviet period, desalination of the Armenian salt marshes to create "economic and agricultural regions", and the creation of lakes for fisheries, "severely restricted the [habitable] area for the insects and [endangered their] existence.

[7][40] Threats to the Porphyrophora hamelii population in Armenia include the development of saline lands, agricultural improvements, uncontrolled livestock grazing, and possibly climate change.