Ancient Quarries

Da alcuni anni l’Università di Padova ha avviato un progetto di ricerca a Nora dedicato all’archeologia dell’edilizia. Nell’ambito del progetto, particolare attenzione è rivolta ai materiali da costruzione di natura lapidea, nel tentativo da un lato di identificare i tipi di pietra impiegati in città nelle sue diverse fasi
edilizie, dall’altro di individuare le cave da cui essi provengono, collocate nel territorio circostante il centro urbano. Il presente contributo è dedicato alla cava di Is Fradis Minoris, luogo di approvvigionamento di un tipo di pietra, l’arenite, che venne utilizzata a Nora per un lungo periodo di tempo, dall’età punica fino all’età romana imperiale.

At Populonia, a coastal settlement in Tyrrhenian Etruria, a joint study has been launched that looks at quarries of stone, particularly calcareous sandstone, and the buildings in which it was used, as part of a plan to reconstruct the production processes of ornamental and building stone and, in parallel, to understand their economic and social value for the urban community. Various methodologies were tested and integrated, particularly for the study of quarries, in order to reconstruct the organization of the extraction process and to make possible the comparison with the built environment: stratigraphic excavation, bi- and three-dimensional survey, cataloguing of quarrying traces, geophysical survey (seismic refraction), and mineralogical and petrographic analyses. Although calcareous sandstone has been used in squared blocks since at least the Orientalizing period (mid-seventh century BC) in upper class funerary buildings, a study of the traces of extraction in the Buche delle Fate quarry made it possible to identify the technical background of the workers and the procedures for extracting the blocks, datable to the reconstruction of the acropolis of Populonia between the late third to mid second century BC. Archaeometrical analyses allowed the stone material samples taken from buildings to be related with different quarry areas, revealing itself as the most reliable method for tracking the supply points of the calcareous sandstone for individual construction sites.

El presente reporte muestra los resultados de prospección llevados a cabo en la cuenca del Río Vilcanota, Cusco que tuvo como fin ampliar el registro arqueológico de materiales, técnicas y distribución de estilos arquitectónicos usados en la mampostería de sitios del Periodo Intermedio Tardío e Inka; además de localizar potenciales fuentes geológicas de materia prima y canteras.

This is a preliminary report on the results of three seasons of excavation (2016-2018) carried out at ꜤEinot Amitai, located in the Lower Galilee on the western slopes of the Har Yonah neighbourhood in Nof HaGalil. The excavations uncovered remains of a Roman-era chalk quarry which provided the raw material for an on-site workshop that produced chalk vessels. The interior of the cave contained a predominantly gravel fill comprised of ancient chippings produced as a by-product of both quarrying and stone-vessel production which took place within the cave. The fill contained close to 500 fragments of cores and vessels discarded in various stages of manufacture. The results of the present excavations provide the opportunity for novel insights into manufacturing techniques, vessel typology, and chronology. The discovery of large-scale chalk-vessel production at this site, almost certainly for local consumption, supports the understanding that a significant market demand for chalk vessels characterized the Galilee in a manner similar to the Judean heartland.

This book includes 88 contributions (oral and posters) that were presented during the IX International Conference of the Association for the Study of Marbles and Other Stones in Antiquity (ASMOSIA), held in Tarragona between 8 and June 13 2009.
These papers reflect the outcome of this meeting, which aimed to provide the scientific community interested in ancient stone a forum to discuss and exchange new data and results about all related aspects (geological and analytical archaeological, artistic and historical).
 Following the premises of ASMOSIA, special attention is paid to a multidisciplinary approach and collaboration between researchers and practitioners from different disciplines as an essential tool to advance the identification, use, sale and use of materials tablet in ancient times.
 The volume is divided into 8 chapters which are derived from sessions which organized the conference:
1. Applications to specific archaeological questions. Use of Marble
2. Provenances identification and I. Marbles
3. Provenances identification and II. Other stones
4. Transport and trade of stone
5. Quarries
6. Quarrying techniques, organization and stone manufacturing
7. Pigments of paintings and marble
8. Symbolism of stones. Local and imported materials

The article discusses the use of andesites in prehistory and Antiquity, from the perspective of volcanic rock occurrences in the surroundings of Deva, Romania. The southern and western part of Deva, located in southwestern Transylvania, in the northeastern side of the Poiana Ruscă Mountains, has experienced an almost uninterrupted exploitation of the andesite sources, from the Early Neolithic until today. While in prehistory the volcanic rock exploitations were adapted mainly to the requirements of those times for producing querns, in Antiquity the andesite quarries in the southern part of Deva were exploited to obtain the stone needed for certain elements of civil and religious architecture, as well as everyday necessities such as the production of querns.

Nach dem Ende der Römerherrschaft blieben die römischen Verwaltungsstrukturen bestehen. Andernach und Mayen waren weiterhin jeweils Zentralort eines fiscus. In Mayen wurde bis in die Karolingerzeit kontinuierlich Keramik in römischer Tradition hergestellt und weithin exportiert, dann der Exportraum noch ausgeweitet. Exporte zeigen, dass der Mühlsteinabbau bei Mayen nie völlig zum Erliegen kam und gegen 700 wieder gesteigert wurde. Auch Mühlsteine scheint man zunächst in römischer Tradition produziert zu haben. Tuff wurde noch unter Valentinian I. für Zwecke des Festungsbaus und für die Herstellung von Sarkophagen bis in die erste Hälfte des 5. Jahrhunderts abgebaut. Außerhalb der Städte deuten Siedlungen wie die von Mayen-Hausen und einige Gräberfelder auf eine kontinuierliche Besiedlung zwischen Römerzeit und frühem Mittelalter. Manche Bestattungen lassen erkennen, dass einige Personen an römischen Sitten festhielten und die alte Sachkultur wertschätzten. In Andernach belegen zahlreiche Grabinschriften aus dem Gräberfeld »An der Landsegnung« eine gebildete städtische Gesellschaftsschicht, die weiterhin Latein lesen und schreiben konnte.
----------
The Industrial Area between Mayen and Andernach in Roman Times and the Early Middle Ages
After the end of Roman rule, the Roman administrative structures remained in place. Andernach and Mayen each continued to be the central location of a fiscus. In Mayen, pottery was continuously produced in the Roman tradition and widely exported until the Carolingian period, then the export area was further expanded. Exports show that millstone mining at Mayen never came to a complete standstill and was increased again around 700. Millstones also seem to have been produced initially in the Roman tradition. Tuff was still being quarried under Valentinian I for purposes of fortress construction and for the manufacture of sarcophagi until the first half of the 5th century. Outside the towns, settlements such as that of Mayen-Hausen and some burial grounds indicate continuous settlement between Roman times and the Early Middle Ages. Some burials indicate that some people adhered to Roman customs and valued the old material culture. In Andernach, numerous grave inscriptions from the cemetery »An der Landsegnung« attest to an educated urban social class that was still able to read and write Latin.
----------
La zone industrielle entre Mayen et Andernach à l’époque romaine et au Haut Moyen Âge
Après la fin de la domination romaine, les structures administratives romaines sont restées en place. Andernach et Mayen ont continué à être chacune le lieu central d’un fiscus. À Mayen, la poterie a été produite de manière continue dans la tradition romaine et largement exportée jusqu’à la période carolingienne, puis la zone d’exportation s’est encore étendue. Les exportations montrent que l’exploitation des meules à Mayen n’a jamais été complètement interrompue et qu’elle s’est encore accrue vers 700. Les meules semblent également avoir été produites initialement dans la tradition romaine. Sous Valentinian Ier, l’extraction du tuf pour la construction de forteresses et la fabrication de sarcophages se poursuit jusqu’à la première moitié du 5e siècle. En dehors des villes, des établissements tels que celui de Mayen-Hausen et certains cimetières indiquent une occupation continue entre l’époque romaine et le début du Moyen Âge. Certaines sépultures indiquent que quelques personnes adhéraient aux coutumes romaines et appréciaient l’ancienne culture matérielle. À Andernach, les nombreuses inscriptions funéraires du cimetière » An der Landsegnung « témoignent de l’existence d’une classe sociale urbaine éduquée qui savait encore lire et écrire le latin.

Măgura Călanului is a toponym often encountered in the literature, being the
limestone provenance place for different constructions found in the area of the Dacian fortresses from the Orăştie Mountains. A recent endeavour focused mainly on documenting the ancient exploitation marks has also led to the identification of certain partially known or completely new aspects of archaeological interest. The paper presents a series of arguments for re‑dimensioning the area associated with the limestone extraction throughout different periods and for interpreting Măgura Călanului as a more complex archaeological feature than it has been thought, composed of quarries, fortifications, settlements, and, last but not least, of access routes.

Tura limestone, exploited 15km south of present-day Cairo, has been extensively used in the architecture of the Old Kingdom, notably for the casing of pyramids and visible parts of temples. By contrast, other parts of contemporary monuments were built in local limestone, exploited in quarries close to the construction sites. Tura limestone is regarded as a ‘prestige’ material, most probably because its fine-grained texture allowed the execution of finely detailed reliefs, and gave the building a plain white, shining appearance. A similar stone procurement/use pattern prevailed at Thebes in the 11th Dynasty, with building stone (sandstone) and fine-grained limestone coming from a nearby upstream quarry (Dababiya), used in visible parts of the monuments. Northern Tura limestone makes its first appearance in Thebes in the reign of Amenemhat I. The chronology of the monuments of this king in the Theban area is unfortunately poorly constrained, but the use of Tura limestone blocks is evidenced at all sites where the king built (or rebuilt) temples: Tod, Armant, Dendera and Coptos, together with Dababiya limestone. Later on, Senwosret I predominantly used Tura limestone at Karnak. The specificity of Amenemhat I is that the king used both stones, from Dababiya and Tura. The reason why he did so is questioned in this paper. Constraints arising from procurement or contrasted geotechnical behaviour are ruled out, as the Dababiya quarry was to provide massive quantities of stone until the mid 18th Dynasty, and Tura and Dababiya limestones are both used for Amenemhat’s monuments, in a wholly similar way, with strongly oversized blocks. It rather seems that the introduction of Tura limestone in Theban architecture results from a mix of political and religious reasons. Politically, the use of Tura limestone helped anchor the new dynasty, just founded by Amenemhat I, in the continuity of the great rulers and builders of the Old Kingdom, and helped create, through the achievement of an ambitious architectural programme, a strong architectural link between the north and south, representing the union of the two lands. In the religious sphere, too, there was an obvious ‘mirror effect’ between northern and southern Heliopolis. This parallelism was, in a typically Egyptian way, materialized by the use of a same ‘prestige’ stone at both locations. As this was unlikely to be noticed at first glance, the kings took care to state that they used Tura limestone in explicit texts carved on Theban monuments. If in the Middle Kingdom there is an agreement between texts and the material used then this is no longer true in the New Kingdom. However, it remains important to state that the temple is built in the ‘beautiful white stone of Anu’, even though the stone comes from a nearby quarry.