How was it Done???

From what I've read, in the post-Roman age the mythos surrounding sculpted porphyry was nearing the magical realm.

People genuinely thought that the ancients worked some kind of voodoo magic in order to carve the stone. And every pope, Medici, and aristocrat wanted some of that magic in their hands too. And so, countless priceless artifacts were shattered, sliced, broken, and otherwise mutilated in order to release that magical power.

Something that has always seemed absolutely magical to me are the mechanical automatons of the 19th and 18th centuries.



How can something like this have been made by human hands??

 

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Porphyry sarcophagus of Helena, Constantine's mother...

 

The sarcophagus of Napoleon Bonaparte, which is located in a decidedly Roman-like setting.

Although it certainly looks pretty purple, it's actually a much more common variety of red porphyry. Remember, the purple stuff had gone extinct 1800 years ago by that point. So in spite of not having the imperial variety, Napoleon got the darkest red that was possible and figured it was "close enough" to purple.

Note the lack of fine details on this one, as compared to the sarcophagus of Helena above. In spite of the rediscovery of porphyry working techniques, even in the 19th century it still never eclipsed the level of the ancients - proving once again that the Romans held knowledge of some kind of mystical stoneworking magic.

 

Impressively overwhelmed

 

In the early to mid-80s I lived 4 years in Egypt supervising the construction of a port/grain silo facility on the Red Sea shore at Safaga. On Fridays and holidays, I would spend most of my time in the Eastern Desert exploring and visiting the Ptolemaic and Roman ruins. Thus I've been fortunate to have been able to visit the imperial porphyry quarries in Egypt numerous times. In addition to the quarries, there is a remarkable causeway where the stone was brought down the mountain, numerous Roman villages situated in the mountain wadis, a temple, and a relatively well-preserved praesidium (fort). I eventually co-authored a peer-reviewed article in the American Journal of Archaeology on the 150 km long Roman road and its related stations from the porphyry quarries to the Nile River. And yes, one can still see the tracks of the Roman wagons in some of the gravel beds. Plus pieces of porphyry that occasionally fell off the wagons.

The quarries are located in the Red Sea Mountains at Gebel Dokhan (Smoke Mountain in Arabic) and which the Romans called Mons Porphyrites (Mountain of Porphyry). It's about a 40 km trip by 4-wheel drive from the town of Hurghada.

As the above posters have noted, the stone from these quarries is beautiful, purple with white crystals. Its very fine-grained matrix makes it suitable for carving. One interesting use of the purple porphyry I didn't notice mentioned above was in the imperial palace in Constantinople on the walls of the birthing room for the royal family. That's the origination of our term "born to the purple"

 

That's incredible! I'm extremely jealous.

I don't supposed you managed to pocket any of the goods...

I don't think that the imperial birthing room is still intact, which is very sad.

The Palace of Porphrygenitus is still around, but unfortunately I don't think it has any purple inside.

 

Very informing, the birthing room purple is interesting as through out the centuries only royalty were allowed to wear the color purple, this rock must have been where this all started??

 

Someone will have to convince me that the ability to carve a certain type of rock was 'lost" technology. In my mind its the artistic ability that was lost... for anything grand. The society could not support artisans and the years it took to perfect their craft - it was a luxury that was discarded when feeding your people became a universal problem.

 

I'm no expert, butI believe the origin of purple as a color of royalty, aristocracy and senatorial privilige goes back to the Phoenician purple trade, especially Tyre (that's also the reason why you sometimes find a conch on Phoenician coins). They extracted the dye from the mucus of a shell, Murex brandaris. The extraction was a time consuming (and stinking) proces; up to 250.000 shells were needed to produce one ounce of dye, hence it was so expensive and sought after that only the richest and most powerful could afford it.
It is said that the Persian King Cyrus was (one of the) first to wear purple as a symbol of royal status.
So, to the best of my knowledge, the association of purple and royalty predates the use of purple porphyry. But it certainly would have helped...



Murex (Bolinus) brandaris

 

Great point. As far as I am aware, porphyry is a VERY hard stone that is VERY difficult to carve with standard marble sculpting chisels and rasps.

The fact that there were NO porphyry statues from the fall of Western Rome until the 17th century points to two things:
The loss of the quarry
An inability to carve

If the quarry was lost, we would see plenty of recarvings of old porphyry statues. There’s plenty of examples of recarved marble statues from the medieval period, but ZERO porphyry.

That fact alone indicates that the tech to carve it was lost.

The ONLY porphyry sculpting of any kind between ~500 and ~1600 was the slicing of porphyry columns to make into wall or floor insets.

To me, there’s only only possible reason why absolutely nobody for over a thousand years carved porphyry.

Even if it was a declining art and patronage was on the decline, you would have certainly seen some porphyry recarvings, definitely at or past the time of the Bamberg Horseman (the first large scale equestrian statue since Roman antiquity, ca 13th century).

In conclusion, it is my belief that the only reason no porphyry sculptures of any kind were produced for over one thousand years is that, despite there being plenty of medium to work with, the skill and ability to work with it simply disappeared and was lost to time.

For example - fine me a modern watchmaker who can produce an automaton like the Silver Swan. It’s simlly a lost art.

 

There were some seriously talented Ancient coin engravers.

 

I'm not saying it was aliens...

 

LOL, that Aliens subject is becoming a Vortex just like Slabbing Ancients...

 

This was how they did it.

The Annaberger Bergaltar, 1522, Annaberg-Buchholz, Germany shows the process of coin minting from mining, processing the metals, to the mint. The process of etching the die in ancient and medieval times was a combo of etching and punches by highly talented men who did little else. It took talent and good eyes. I have studied more modern (17th - 18th century) engravers and they were often hired after talent competitions, many came from generations of engravers and metal smiths, and they studied under masters until they could do it like it came natural to them.

 

Haha, the engraved in the last picture looks absolutely MISERABLE

 

Someone pointed out once that the fellows in the mint are dressed quite a bit nicer than the others, quite fashionable which made me think they may have been well paid.

At the top left of the large center panel (this painting is by the artist Hans Hesse btw) is Daniel Knappe and the Angel (Knappe being another word for a miner in at least some parts of Germany) the story goes:

The miner Daniel Knappe was a hard-working and honest man who had got into fi-
nancial difficulties through no fault of his own and hardly knew how to feed his sick
wife and their seven children. One night an angel appeared to him in a dream and
said, "Go tomorrow into the dense forest at the foot of the Schreckenberg. There, in
the branches of the tallest fir tree, you will find a nest with golden eggs.” First thing
the next morning the miner set out and soon found the tallest fir tree. He climbed to
the top of the tree and searched all around – but in vain – a nest with golden eggs
was nowhere to be found. Deeply disappointed, he descended again then suddenly,
it occurred to him that he had perhaps misinterpreted the dream, and that in reality
the roots of the tree could be the place to search. He got his tools, started digging,
and soon came upon a rich silver vein.
This story are said to have taken place in 1491. The rich finds prompted
Duke Georg the Bearded to have a new mountain town built at the site. The “new
town at Schreckenberg" received its town charter already in October 1497 and was
renamed Annaberg in 1501.



Herzog (Duke) Georg Von Sachsen (the Bearded) by Lucas Cranach the Elder

 

I'm sure that a few did some counterfiting on the sly thus the nice finery...??
I think I would consider it in those dark days of haves and have nots!