18 July 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

The Roman Imperial period, There was Less Waste in the Production of Marble Slabs than Today

When talking about the architecture of the ancient Roman Empire, most people usually think of the mental image of white marble statues, columns, or slabs. Indeed, many buildings and squares at that time were decorated with marble, but it is not white but colored marble that is usually used, such as the green-veined Cipollino Verde, which was extracted from the Greek island of Euboea. Because marble is very expensive, it is usually placed in a thinner thick slab as cladding on other cheaper stones.

“To date, however, no actual remains of marble workshops from the Roman imperial era have been found, so little is known about marble processing during this period,” said Professor Cees Passchier of the Institute of Geosciences at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU).

Now, together with other researchers in Mainz, Turkey, and Canada, he has completed the analysis of the marble exterior walls of Roman villas in the second century AD. As the researchers detailed in the online edition of the Journal of Archaeological Science: Report, they used special software commonly used for 3D modeling of geological structures. They discovered that during the manufacture of marble slabs during the time, the material loss was likely smaller than it is now.

Researchers inspected, photographed, and measured 54 restored Cipollino Verde panels, each about 1.3 square meters. These panels had used to decorate the walls of a villa in ancient Ephesus on the west coast of Turkey.

Given the saw marks on one of the plates, they were able to infer that the plates were cut in a water-powered sawmill, in fact using what we know today as hydraulic hacksaws. Using reconstructions based on patterned slabs, the research team was also able to conclude that a total of 40 slabs were cut from a single marble block weighing between three and four tons. They were then installed on the wall in the order of production and arranged side by side in pairs of books to form a symmetrical pattern.

marble slabs
One of the analyzed pairs of marble slabs, arranged in typical
book-matched fashion [Photo: Cees W. Passchier]
Finally, the researchers used the program to generate a three-dimensional model of the marble block, which in turn enabled them to draw conclusions about the material wastage during the production of the slabs.

“The slabs are about 16 millimeters thick and the gaps between them, caused by sawing and subsequent polishing, are about 8 millimeters wide. This material loss attributable to production equates to around one-third and is, therefore, less than the rates now commonly associated with many forms of modern marble production,” Passchier pointed out. “We can therefore conclude that marble extraction during the imperial period was remarkably efficient.”

The researchers also found that, despite the fact that 42 slabs had been sawn from one initial marble block, two had not been secured to the hall’s walls. “The arrangement of the slabs on the villa walls suggests these slabs were most likely broken, possibly during polishing or their subsequent transportation,” added Passchier.

“This would mean that the amount lost due to breakage would be 5 percent, which would also be an astonishingly low figure.” This small loss leads Passchier to assume that the entire marble block had been transported to Ephesus and that the slabs were then cut and polished there.

Source: Universitaet Mainz

Cover Photo: Sinan Ilhan

Related Articles

Ancient Celtic Bone Pen Found in Southern Germany

14 December 2024

14 December 2024

From August to October this year, the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments (LAD) in the Stuttgart Regional Council...

Israeli researchers have found evidence of cooking fish 780,000 years ago at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov

14 November 2022

14 November 2022

Hominins living at Gesher Benot Ya’akov 780,000 years ago liked their fish to be well cooked, Israeli researchers revealed Monday,...

A Previously Unknown Bronze Age Settlement Discovered in Switzerland

18 February 2024

18 February 2024

In advance of a construction project in Heimberg, the Archaeological Service of the Canton of Bern carried out a rescue...

Scientists unlock the ‘Cosmos’ on the Antikythera Mechanism

13 March 2021

13 March 2021

Scientists may have finally made a complete digital model of the 2000-year-old Cosmos panel of a mechanical device called the...

The enigma behind King Tut’s’space dagger,’ according to archaeologists, has finally been solved

24 February 2022

24 February 2022

Archaeologists have finally solved the enigma of King Tutankhamun’s dagger, which was discovered 3,400 years ago. A new examination of...

Ancient Guests, Exotic Gifts: Wild Boars Traveled Miles to a Prehistoric Feast in Iran

15 July 2025

15 July 2025

New research suggests prehistoric communities in Iran’s Zagros Mountains transported wild boars over 70 kilometers to participate in elaborate communal...

Hundreds Of Mummified Bees inside their Cocoons from the Time of the Pharaohs found in Portugal

25 August 2023

25 August 2023

Hundreds of mummified bees inside their cocoons have been found on the southwest coast of Portugal, in a new paleontological...

An extraordinary medieval belt loop found near Kamień Pomorski in Poland

18 March 2024

18 March 2024

A late medieval belt loop for hanging keys or a bag was found near the town of Kamień Pomorski in...

3.300-year-old Hittite Inscription was Used in Gate Construction

10 May 2021

10 May 2021

Our cultural assets become victims of ignorance one by one. The works that will illuminate the darkness of history continue...

The researchers may have cracked the mystery of da Vinci’s DNA

7 July 2021

7 July 2021

A recent study of Leonardo da Vinci’s family tree indicates that the renowned Renaissance artist, inventor, and anatomist had 14...

A cave complex with hieroglyphs and Varangian symbols discovered in center of Ukraine

19 November 2022

19 November 2022

An ancient cave complex thought to date from Kievan Rus’ has been discovered in central Kyiv at Voznesensky Uzvoz. Dmytro...

Ancient settlements that challenge traditional thinking “Karahantepe and Taş Tepeler”

5 December 2021

5 December 2021

After Göbeklitepe in Şanlıurfa, which sheds light on 12,000 years ago in human history and is considered one of the...

Battle of the Egadi Islands: Rome’s deadly weapons discovered off Sicily

3 September 2021

3 September 2021

Underwater archaeologists from the Soprintendenza del Mare Regione Siciliana, RPM Nautical Foundation, and the Society for the Documentation of Submerged...

Denmark King’s spice cabinet discovered on Gribshunden

13 February 2023

13 February 2023

The Gribshunden, a 15th-century Danish royal warship, was uncovered to have been loaded with botanical materials, including the first archaeological...

A 2900-year-old collection of fossilized shark teeth found in the City of David, one of Jerusalem’s oldest Parts

5 July 2021

5 July 2021

Scientists discovered an inexplicable collection of fossilized shark teeth at a 2900-year-old archaeological site in Jerusalem’s City of David, one...