Imperial Porphyry
February 27, 2006
Originally I became intrigued by porphyry by my friend Dee. On a number of occasions Dee has regaled us with tales from her trips to Europe. Recently she was talking about a stone they use throughout Rome called porphyry. She couldn’t understand why Rome had so much of it and the rest of the world was pretty much devoid of this. My interests were piqued.
First of all, I needed to know how to pronounce porphyry. After reading the brief description on Answers.Com, it was clear to me that there were multiple types of this igneous rock, not all of it particularly rare. So what makes the stuff they have in Rome so special?
The specific porphyry of note in Rome is called “imperial porphyry”. It is a deep reddish purple color with white crystals and is very fine grained. It is excellent for carving. It was “discovered” in Egypt in the year 18 by a Roman legionnaire. The Romans began mining the porphyry using slave labor in AD29 for around 300 years.
From Via Porphyrites in Saudi Aramco World:
What makes imperial porphyry so precious and rare is that it is found at only one place on earth, atop a 1600-meter (mile-high) mountain in the eastern province of Egypt. The Romans named the site Mons Porphyrites, or Porphyry Mountain, and the Arabs today call it Jabal Abu Dukhan, or Smoky Mountain.
Thrust to the earth’s surface in the same volcanic action that once formed the Red Sea, the porphyry found at Mons Porphyrites is, as far as specialists know, geologically unique. But the site is so barren and so remote that only slave labor could ever have extracted the stone, and even then only for the relatively brief historical moment when Roman power was at its zenith.
On top of this, the rough cut blocks needed to be dragged by oxcarts 100 miles to the Nile River where they could be loaded on barges and taken to Rome. To add to this difficulty, temperature’s can hit 114 degrees F in the summertime.
Rome was not the only city fascinated by this rare and beautiful stone. Constantine the Great celebrated the founding of Constantinople by erecting a 30 meter pillar built from seven porphyry drums. This pillar still stands today in the modern city of Istanbul. There are also columns of porphyry in the beautiful Hagia Sophia. In later history, porphyry remnants found their way to Germany and later England.
After AD 335, the mine was lost. Napoleon searched for it and failed. Later, in 1823, it was rediscovered by British pioneers. It was unsuccessfully mined off and on including the last full scale attempt by Egypt’s Prince Farouk in the 1930’s. He too failed, learning how hard this work was.
In ancient times, porphyry became the symbol of rulership and was used for the finest things crafted in Rome. Of the thousands of tons mined and fashioned primarily into columns, 134 columns remain standing in Italy today.
According to the BBC:
Two colours predominated, the purple or deep red of porphyry, a much prized marble quarried in the Egyptian desert and generally reserved for statues of Roman emperors and their families
Not only was porphyry used for palaces and decoration, on notable occasions it was used for coffins and sarcophagi. Nero was first to be buried in porphyry. Following him were: Constantine and his wife(?) Constantia, Holy Roman Emperors Frederick II, Henry IV and William I, and that of the Empress Constance.
A modern story of interest is that of Lady Cowdray, wife of a Scottish oil magnate. Before he died, she promised to bury him in a porphyry sarcophagus. She mined the porphyry herself, and made good on the promise.
Tags: "constantine the great", "empress constance", "frederick II", "hagia sophia", "henry IV", "imperial porphyry", "lady cowdray", "mons porphyrites", "roman emperors", "william I", columns, constantia, constantinople, egypt, europe, history, igneous, istanbul, napoleon, nero, porphyry, purple, rome
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[...] There are over 900 churches in Rome. From the top of Emanuele II Monument Sculpture, all you can see is church domes everywhere you look. I was completely awe-inspired, looking at countless monuments, cathedrals, priceless works of art, Egyptian Porphyry and Obelisks at every turn. [...]