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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;hotwheelsearl, post: 4407220, member: 75143&quot;]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.</p><p><br /></p><p>The fact that there were NO porphyry statues from the fall of Western Rome until the 17th century points to two things:</p><p>The loss of the quarry </p><p>An inability to carve</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>That fact alone indicates that the tech to carve it was lost.</p><p><br /></p><p>The ONLY porphyry sculpting of any kind between ~500 and ~1600 was the slicing of porphyry columns to make into wall or floor insets.</p><p><br /></p><p>To me, there’s only only possible reason why absolutely nobody for over a thousand years carved porphyry.</p><p><br /></p><p>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).</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>For example - fine me a modern watchmaker who can produce an automaton like the Silver Swan. It’s simlly a lost art.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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