Natural Science in Archaeology

254 11 Building, Monumental, and Statuary Materials
times, basalt was used in statues and sarcophagi. When found in commercial deposits,
basalt is sometimes called trap or trap rock.
Volcanic tuff can be of andesitic or basaltic composition. It is fine-grained and easy
to work. Tuff was used by the ancient Etruscans and Romans as both a pozzolanic compound
to manufacture cements and as building blocks (Ashurst and Dimes 1998). The
ancient Byzantine city of Cappadocia was carved into the surrounding andesitic tuff.
Basalt rocks have also been used for architecture (Fig. 11.4) and megalithic
works of art. Thirty-four monasteries and temples were carved into a basaltic cliff
at Ellora, India (600–1000 CE). The world’s largest Buddha statue (eighth century
CE) is carved into the basalt peak of Mount Lingyun at Leshan, China. The famous
Buddhist temple of Borobudur (ninth century ACE) in Southeast Asia is constructed
of andesite (Shadmon 1996). In the large buildings they constructed, the Incas used
big blocks of andesite from quarries in the southern sierra of Ecuador and also
from quarries near their capital in Peru. Some of these andesite blocks apparently
were transported up to 1600 km from their source (Ogburn 2004).The Romans used
dolerite to build part of Hadrian’s Wall. Large blocks of dolerite were incorporated
into an Iron Age camp at Titterstone Clee, England (Ashurst and Dimes 1998).
Dolerite was also used for carvings in the New World; for example, a miniature bat
from the coast of Ecuador (Bushnell 1965). Basalt was used widely in the Valley of
Mexico for monumental stone throughout Precolumbian times.
The most widely used stone in the historical architecture of Naples, Italy, called
“Piperno”, was secured primarily from underground quarries. Piperno is a volcanic
rock with feldspar and pyroxene as the major constituents. It was used as far back
as the eighth century BCE and became the stone of choice for the monuments of
Naples (Calcatera et al. 2007).
Fig. 11.4 Umm el-Jimal, Jordan, is constructed almost entirely of local basalt