Natural Science in Archaeology

6.5 Limestone and Marble 133
Fig. 6.6 Limestone sculpture
from Nemrut Mountain,
Turkey, a first century BCE
site of Antiochus I
wall carvings. However, the greatest use for marble in the minor arts occurred during
the Bronze Age. From the Early Cycladic Bronze Age (ca. 3200–2700), specialists
in the Cyclades carved marble bowls in a wide variety of shapes, the most
popular being spherical, hemispherical, conical, and cylindrical (Getz-Gentle 1996;
Fig. 6.7). These are often found deposited as grave goods, and chests have also been
recovered from Early Cycladic tombs. This art form spread throughout the Mediterranean
to Minoan Crete and the Greek mainland. An extensive industry in stone
bowl carving also developed in Predynastic Egypt. A three-volume publication by
El-Khouli (1978) is a definitive reference for this Egyptian stone bowl industry.
Pliny notes the use of marble to carve vessels, particularly those for cooling liquids.
A dark red marble from Cape Taenarum known as rosso antico was used at both
Knossos and Mycenae for carved decorations (Dodge 1988). Several different types
of marbles are famous from antiquity, and most continue to be used today.
Exploitation of marble quarries began in Asia Minor and the Cyclades around the
seventh century BCE, and advanced in the following centuries. Until the Hellenistic
Period, white marbles were preferred. These include Parian marble, a pure-white,
semitransparent variety quarried from Mt. Marpessa on the Cycladic island of Paros.
It was especially popular in the Classical Greek Period and was used in all the major
Greek temples either for statuary or as a subsidiary raw material in their construction.
Marble was also quarried at Proconnesus on the island of Marmara in Turkey.
Proconnesus marble was the most widely used for buildings and sarcophagi. Pentelic
marble, from Mount Pentelicus in Attica about 16 km northeast of Athens, is the
famous marble selected by Phidias, Praxiteles, and other Greek sculptors of the fifth
and fourth centuries BCE for production of what are perhaps the best-recognized statues
of antiquity. White marble was also obtained from Mount Hymettus in Greece.
Pure white marble was not only used for freestanding statuary, but also as a veneer, to