Scientists take the plunge underwater to analyze one of the most valuable elements from the affluent Roman villas: white marble. [Michela Ricca et al.]
Posted on 02/16/2016 9:05:00 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The Roman Emperors used to spend their summers in the city of Baia, near Naples. With the passage of time, however, the majority of their luxury villas became immersed under water. Italian and Spanish researchers have now applied microscopic and geochemical techniques to confirm that the marble used to cover these ancient Roman buildings came from Carrara and other marble quarries in Turkey and Greece...
The area which is now the Underwater Archaeological Park of Baia, just outside of Naples (Italy), was an important Roman bath city between the 1st century BC and the 3rd century AD where emperors such as Augustus and Nero owned leisure villas. Over the centuries, however, part of this ancient city became submerged five metres below sea level as a result of the subsidence coastal area.
Scientists from the University of Calabria (Italy), in collaboration with the Spanish researcher Mónica Alvarez de Buergo, took the plunge underwater to analyse one of the most valuable elements from those affluent Roman villas: white marble. The objective was to determine the origin of this material which was used in the production of floor slabs which can still be observed by divers in this area...
In order to compare the samples, the team selected some of the most well-known and widely-used white marble from the Roman period in the Mediterranean basin.
Specifically, they selected eight varieties from the best marble quarries in Italy, Greece and Turkey.
The data reveal that the parameters that have contributed the most to identifying the material and its origin have been the petrographic microscopy -more specifically, varying crystal sizes depending on the source of the marble-, the manganese content (whose content can vary between 0.84 parts per million and 1093.8 parts per million) and the difference in oxygen and carbon isotopes.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
Scientists take the plunge underwater to analyze one of the most valuable elements from the affluent Roman villas: white marble. [Michela Ricca et al.]
1st Century BC.
How did they make uniform chips out of marble ?
Skilfully.
“White marble” The Romans were raciss?
Obviously.
But think about it. How would you make so many uniform chips out of solid marble, with no modern tools ?
“How did they make uniform chips out of marble ?”
Slaves. Lots and lots of slaves
OK. Then what did the slaves use to grind the marble into flat, uniform pieces ?
Chipping out the rough shapes, marble is easy to carve after all, rubbing the flattish resulting piece against grindstones.
Polishing, cutting into smaller pieces.
my thought is that the picture is misplaced.
the operation depicted seems to be cleaning of a mosaic surface
toward the top the area where the tiles are missing is visible
Not according to the byline accompanying the photo.
the operation depicted seems to be cleaning of a mosaic surface
It is. The mosaic is made of marble. It's the floor of a Roman villa, submerged underwater. The photo is exactly what the article is about.
Easy ?
grindstones, polishing, cutting into smaller pieces... sounds good as long as you have electricity and power tools.
It's obvious they did it anyway, without those tools, but it still seems amazing to me.
Relatively speaking - I did some sculpture in school and we played around with various stones - from Wiki
“Marble also has the advantage that, when first quarried, it is relatively soft and easy to work, refine, and polish.[1] As the finished marble ages, it becomes harder and more durable. Preference to the cheaper and less translucent limestone is based largely on the fineness of marble’s grain, which enables the sculptor to render minute detail in a manner not always possible with limestone; it is also more weather-resistant.”
- and its true, it is easier to carve than basalt for instance (which is a %*^%%), etc.
For rough shaping I assume they used hammers and chisels much like Michelangelo did.
They had saws likewise, I assume used with abrasives.
They had grindstones - i.e., they used stones to grind other stones using abrasives like volcanic sand, etc.
And its not out of the question for them to have used something like a potters wheel - sort of like a vertical lathe.
I can't find the photo right now, but I've seen the remains of a Roman water-powered saw mill which cut stone into slabs. Once you have a slab, you can cut it into uniform strips. Turn the strips 90-degrees and cut uniform squares. Easy.
The pink marble facade comes from the same Tennessee quarries as used in the original neo-classic National Gallery.
The knife edge you see to the right of the photo has a 19 degree angle, the vertex of which has a slight chamfer. The overall finish of the stones is a light sand blast to mute the pink color.
That knife edge rising upwards is so startling that it draws people to touch it, rubbing their hands in wonder. Over the course of the first year or so human hands and skin oils polished a patch from eye level to about knee level to a smooth almost glossy sheen showing the natural deeper pink ofvthecstone. First reports from thw Museum staff believed them to be stains until more practiced eyes examined them.
So you see, working marble doesn't require special metal tools or grinding compounds.
Hell no! Construction occured in mid-seventies before she came on the scene.
from the Museum web site:
The dramatic geometry of architect I. M. Pei’s great “H” shaped facade matches the equally severe walls of the West Building, which is situated across the plaza seen in the photograph above. To correspond in texture and color to the original building, the new one is faced inside and out with lavender-pink marble from the same quarry in Tennessee.....”
After she is elected, we’ll need to revise history on that
/s/s/s/s/s
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