The Marbles – Area 14

Breccia dorata, verde antico, fior di pesco, breccia di Sciro, serpentina moschinata, marmo bigio

On display here are some rare and valuable marbles from Italy, Greece and Egypt: a block of breccia dorata from Montagnola Senese, two large blocks of breccia di Sciro, from the island of Skyros, and a column shaft in fior di pesco from Eretria, on Euboea.

 

The large slab of verde antico from Thessaly and that of serpentina moschinata from Wadi Attalah in Egypt are discards from sawing marble slabs whilst the roughly carved column shaft in marmo bigio from Lesbos with incised rings testifies to an intermediate stage of the working process.

Reconstruction of the hydraulic saw for cutting marbles in the marble cutters workshop in the terrace houses at Ephesus
(Mangartz 2007)