In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

261 THE SAGALASSOS QUARRY LANDSCAPE: BRINGING QUARRIES IN CONTEXT Patrick DEGRYSE, Tom HELDAL, Elizabeth BLOXAM, Per STOREMYR, Marc WAELKENS and Philippe MUCHEZ 1. INTRODUCTION Ancient south-western Turkey has always been an area of magnificent white limestone, which was not only extensively used in the local architecture, but was also exported to nearby Pamphylia (Ward-Perkins, 1980; Greenhalgh, 1987; Waelkens et al., 2002). An honorific inscription mentioning the ‘local marble of Sagalassos’ shows how closely the polished limestone of the area resembles marble (Waelkens et al., 1997a; Greenhalgh, 1987): “...Concerning this monument, if it wrongly impresses to be carved in Phrygian stone, it misleads you. The stone originates locally”. In this context, ‘Phrygian stone’ can only mean marble from ancient Dokimeion (near modern Afyon, 250 km north of Sagalassos) and more specifically the famous purple veined variety, known as ‘pavanazetto’, that was especially popular for columns, wall veneer and floor pavements in the capital and most of the Imperial provinces, where it was referred to as ‘Phrygian marble’. It should not be forgotten, however, that for the ancients (and even today) every stone that could receive a high polish was a ‘marble’ (Peacock, 1994; Waelkens, 1994). Although Greenhalgh (1987) mentions the polishing qualities of the local limestone, concerning the existence of local marble around Sagalassos, she concludes “whether or not this is true is uncertain, as the stone has not been identified”. It is clear that some confusion exists between the geological definition of ‘marble’ and the ancient use of the term ‘marble’. Also the identification by Fleischer (1979) of the building stones of the northwest Heroon at Sagalassos as being marble, shows how well the high quality limestone of Sagalassos resembles this most precious of stones. The existence of quarries in the neighbourhood of Sagalassos had already been attested before, but a detailed study was never carried out. In his account of the monuments of Sagalassos, Lanckoronski (1893) only mentions the use of (pink) limestone for the construction of the Temple of Antoninus Pius (and the divine Hadrian, as was recently established; Waelkens, 2002), as well as the fact that the theatre of the city was partly built on the bedrock that furnished its building blocks. Of the other eighteenth to twentieth century AD visitors of the city, none seem to have spent any time in the quarries of Sagalassos. Greenhalgh (1987) briefly discusses the stone building materials and mentions the existence of large limestone quarries in the vicinity of Kremna and Sagalassos. Only recently the quarries of Sagalassos have attracted more interest. From the start of the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project, geologists have accompanied archaeologists in the field. A preliminary study of the building stones at Sagalassos did not include the quarries proper (Viaene et al., 1993). However, in the context of an extensive survey of the territory of the city during 1994 and 1995, the remains of two large ancient quarries were recorded (Waelkens et al., 1997b). A small scale survey of the quarries on the site and in the immediate vicinity of the city was carried out from 1998 to 2002 (Loots, 2001). After the preliminary study by Viaene et al. (1993), which provided a first petrographical and geochemical overview of the building stone used at the site of Sagalassos, all building stones occurring in the city were systematically studied and inventoried, together with the stone material extracted from quarries located in the territory of the city. Amacroscopical description and a lithological-facies analysis of the natural stone in the territory of Sagalassos have been published by Degryse et al. (this volume a) and Muchez et al. (this volume a). A comparison of the results from a study of the building stones in the city (Degryse et al., 2003) with those from the above-mentioned research in the city’s territory, eventually resulted in a provenance determination of most building stones. The purpose of the present quarry survey was to relate the quarrying of local stone on the territory to specific building projects at Sagalassos. The important research questions were to characterize the quarries according to their individual significance and their role in the development of the city, the recognition of workshops and other quarry related features, a more detailed investigation of the geological features of the individual quarries and quarry groups and questioning the relationship between volumes that were SAGALASSOS_f15_261-290.indd 261 SAGALASSOS_f15_261-290.indd 261 9/30/2008 2:45:59 PM 9/30/2008 2:45:59 PM 262 quarried and the...

Share