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Hi Corpuscles,
During drinks a scrap of paper happened to blow into the Members Stand.
"The name Mons Claudianus is now used about a whole complex of quarries and structures. There are 130 quarries spread over a fairly large area and there is a smaller camp, sometimes called a fort or a hydreuma, placed c. 1 km away. Buildings and quarries are extremely well preserved. There is no vegetation to speak of and there has been no activity in the area since Roman times.
To continue just a little longer with hard facts, we have found over 9000 Greek and a few Latin ostraca, perhaps as many 50,000 fragments of textiles, tons of ceramic-fragments, bones of animals plus, of course, glass, metal, small objects, and botanical remains.
It would, however, be hypocritical to deny that what makes this site really outstanding is the presence of ostracon-texts concerning the administration of the quarries and the people who worked there.
The reason for this Roman presence in the desert was the extraction of the grey granodiorite, known as granito del foro, because it has been widely used in Trajan's forum and in the Basilica Ulpia. In fact, the name granito del foro covers stones of several provenances, but David Peacock now seems to have succeeded in isolating the Claudianus stone in various monuments, nearly all in Rome and all of them Imperial buildings.
The stone was broken from the bed-rock with iron wedges and subsequently treated with hammer and point. The texts tell us that other tools, like large hammers and hoes, were used in very limited numbers, but the traces on the stone-objects are all of points. The stone objects were shaped in the quarries to a large extent in order to reduce their weight before transportation."
lover
PS. The author and his team spent six years on site. But what would they know?
Post Edited (24-Jun-15 02:52)
During drinks a scrap of paper happened to blow into the Members Stand.
"The name Mons Claudianus is now used about a whole complex of quarries and structures. There are 130 quarries spread over a fairly large area and there is a smaller camp, sometimes called a fort or a hydreuma, placed c. 1 km away. Buildings and quarries are extremely well preserved. There is no vegetation to speak of and there has been no activity in the area since Roman times.
To continue just a little longer with hard facts, we have found over 9000 Greek and a few Latin ostraca, perhaps as many 50,000 fragments of textiles, tons of ceramic-fragments, bones of animals plus, of course, glass, metal, small objects, and botanical remains.
It would, however, be hypocritical to deny that what makes this site really outstanding is the presence of ostracon-texts concerning the administration of the quarries and the people who worked there.
The reason for this Roman presence in the desert was the extraction of the grey granodiorite, known as granito del foro, because it has been widely used in Trajan's forum and in the Basilica Ulpia. In fact, the name granito del foro covers stones of several provenances, but David Peacock now seems to have succeeded in isolating the Claudianus stone in various monuments, nearly all in Rome and all of them Imperial buildings.
The stone was broken from the bed-rock with iron wedges and subsequently treated with hammer and point. The texts tell us that other tools, like large hammers and hoes, were used in very limited numbers, but the traces on the stone-objects are all of points. The stone objects were shaped in the quarries to a large extent in order to reduce their weight before transportation."
lover
PS. The author and his team spent six years on site. But what would they know?
Post Edited (24-Jun-15 02:52)
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