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Aegean Marble: A Petrological Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Colin Renfrew  and
J. Springer Peacey
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Extract

The term ‘Island Marble’ was coined by G. R. Lepsius in 1890. In a first flush of enthusiasm for the recently developed technique of cutting thin sections of rocks for microscopic examination, he claimed to distinguish various Attic and other marbles of mainland Greece, Parian and Naxian marble, and a residual category, ‘Inselmarmor’.

Obviously the ability to determine the place of origin of the raw material, by examination of a specimen of marble, would be of very great value to the archaeologist. With a long series of Classical sculptures from Greece, Lepsius claimed to do this, and became the first of a line of scholars describing marble as ‘Pentelic’, ‘Hymettan’, ‘Parian’, ‘Naxian’, or ‘Island’, usually on the sole basis of visual examination. Prehistorians also have sought to identify as Cycladic figurines and other objects of marble found in contexts outside the Cyclades, purely on the grounds of the material used.

The geological basis for such an identification seems today highly doubtful, and since the question is of considerable relevance to Cycladic prehistory, as well as of more general interest in later periods, we decided to make a systematic, if limited, study of the problem.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 63 , November 1968 , pp. 45 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1968

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References

1 The petrological examination and study of specimens has been conducted by Dr. Springer Peacey, Department of Mineralogy and Petrology, University of Cambridge, while work in the field, and archaeological considerations, are by Colin Renfrew of the Department of Ancient History, The University of Sheffield. We are indebted to the Curator of the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge, for lending samples from the Building Stone collection, and for kindly arranging to have cut thin sections of many of our rocks. Thanks are due also to Professor D. Schachner and Dr. G. Springer of the Department of Mineralogy, University of Aachen. The former put the photographic and rock-cutting facilities of the Department at our disposal, while Dr. Springer made observations and photographs of specimens in the electron-probe microanalyser. Mr. H. A. Shelley kindly drew Fig. 1.

2 Tsountas, C., ‘Kykladika’, AE 1898, pls. 10 and 11Google Scholar; Zervos, C., L'Art des Cvclades (1957)Google Scholar passim.

3 Evans, J. D. and Renfrew, C., ‘The Fat Lady of Saliagos’, Antiquity xl (1966) pl. xxxvi Google Scholar; Theochares, D., ‘Nea Makri, eine groβe neolitische Siedlung in der Nähe von Marathon’, AM lxxi (1956) 25 Google Scholar, fig. 45; Evans, J. D., ‘Excavations at Knossos 1957–1960’, BSA lix (1964) pl. 66.Google Scholar

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12 Tsountas, op. cit. 160.

13 Ibid. 140.

14 For Kastraki, cf. Mackenzie, D., BSA iv (1898) 21 Google Scholar; Stephanos, K., ‘Anaskaphai Naxou’, PAE 1908, 117 Google Scholar; PAE 1909, 209; PAE 1910, 272.

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19 There are outcrops of grey marble on Thera on the road between the ancient acropolis and the village of Kamares, on the coast to the east.

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21 Ibid. 57.

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23 Ibid. 13.

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26 To the islands cited by Miss Richter (G. M. Richter, Archaic Greek Art; id. Kouroi) where archaic sculpture has been found should be added Amorgos. In Katapola, near the ancient Minoa, I was given, in June 1964, the left hand of a kouros, now in the Katapola museum. Fragments of a kore were recently found in Antiparos (now in the Paros museum), and a fragment of a kouros in Dhespotikon ( Zapheiropoulos, N., ADelt xvi (1960) 247 Google Scholar).

27 Dickins, G., Catalogue of the Acropolis Museum i (1912) 37.Google Scholar

28 e.g. Richter, G., The Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks (1929)Google Scholar; Lullies, R. and Hirmer, M., Greek Sculpture (1957)Google Scholar; etc. Recently Miss Richter has taken a more sceptical view, cf. Kouroi (1960) 7.

29 The supposed date for the introduction of Parian marble varies, but the notion of the widespread early use of Naxian marble is now a very general one.

30 Herz, N. indeed suggested (‘Catalogue of the building stones of ancient Greece’, Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences xvii (1955) 499)CrossRefGoogle Scholar that since the chronology of the utilization of marble from the different sources is well established, if only one could determine whether a given sculpture is of Naxian or Parian marble, or whatever else, it could actually be dated in this way. At this point the circularity in the discussion becomes complete.

31 Herz and Pritchett, op. cit. (see above n. 25) 72.

32 Casson, S., The Technique of Early Greek Sculpture (1933) 86 Google Scholar, lines 15 and 30. Undue emphasis must not, of course, be put on a small error, but it exemplifies, perhaps, the almost gratuitous ease with which some writers have felt able to make identifications.

33 H. Payne and G. M. Young, Archaic Marble Sculptures from the Acropolis.

34 Herz and Pritchett, op. cit. 77–80.

35 e.g. Pausanias i. 14. 7; i. 33. 2; i 43. 5; v. 12. 6; viii. 25. 6 etc.; Athenaeus v. 240E; xiii. 574.

36 How he knew the origin of their marble is another problem. Revealingly Lepsius (op. cit., see above n. 20, 128) describes as ‘Naxian’ roof tiles of the temple of Zeus at Olympia, which Pausanias (v. 10. 3) describes as of Pentelic marble. That the ancient writers were sometimes mistaken in their identifications is indicated by Eicholz, D. F. (Pliny, , NH (Loeb) vol. x, 68 n. b)Google Scholar where he suggests that Pliny's entrance to the Egyptian labyrinth, described as of Parian marble (NH xxxvi. 19. 87) was in fact of the white Egyptian limestone mentioned by Theophrastus, (De Lapidibus i. 7).Google Scholar

37 Ibid. i. 6.

38 NH xxxv. 5 f. Not all of these are marble in the modern sense, but his list includes Carystos, Chios, Hymettos, Lesbos, Marmara, Paros, and Thasos.

39 Building records are sometimes informative. One such ( Tod, M. N., Greek Historical Inscriptions ii. 200 Google Scholar) indicates that it cost nearly as much to transport marble from the coast (presumably Itea) to Delphi, as by sea from Corinth to Itea. I am indebted to Mr. Alistair Jackson for this reference.

40 NH xxxvi. 4. 14; xxxvi. 13. 62, if lygdinus was, in fact, a variety of marble; Geography v. 2. 6; x. 5. 7.

41 Bent, J. T.. The Cyclades (1884) 384 f.Google Scholar

42 Adam, S., The Technique of Greek Sculpture (BSA Supplementary Volume 3, 1966) 39.Google Scholar

43 Pausanias mentions only the invention, by Byzes, a Naxian, of stone roof tiles (v. 10. 3).

44 Cf. Bluemel, C., Greek Sculptors at Work (1955) 14 Google Scholar, fig. 2–3; 22, fig. 12–13.

45 Richter, G. M., Archaic Greek Art (1949)Google Scholar, fig. 46; id. Kouroi (1960), figs. 87–9.

46 For Mykonos, see n. 11 above. For Delos cf. Herz, N., ‘Petrofabric analysis and classical archaeology’, American Journal of Science ccliii (1955) 302.Google Scholar

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52 Weiss, L. E., ‘Fabric analysis of some Greek marbles and its application to archaeology’, American Journal of Science cclii (1954) 641 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; N. Herz, op. cit. (see above n. 30 and n. 46).

53 Rybach and Nissen, op. cit.