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Volume 97 No. 1
January 1993
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The Exportation of Marble from the Aliki Quarries on Thasos: Cathodoluminescence of Samples from Turkey and Italy
John J. Herrmann, Jr., and Vincent Barbin
Marble architectural decoration at various sites around the Mediterranean has been attributed to the quarries at Aliki on Thasos on the basis of traditional art historical methods. These methods have included stylistic and typological analysis of artifacts as well as marble identifications by experienced eyes. Some of these conjectural attributions are here subjected to verification by means of cathodoluminescence and isotopic analysis. The presence of marble imported from Aliki can be confirmed at Pergamon, Sardis, Ephesos, and Ostia. From the limited program of sampling undertaken, it appears that in Hellenistic times unworked blocks were exported from Aliki. No evidence was found for the Roman Imperial period, but in the Early Christian period, elements of an architectural ordering-column shafts, bases, and Ionic capitals-were shipped from Aliki in a semifinished state. Such cargoes were directed both to Italy and to Asia Minor in the fourth century A.C. Slabs for paving from Aliki have a demonstrable importance in the fifth century, and they must have played a role earlier as well. These Late Antique cargoes usually seem to have been imported by private dealers on a speculative basis. In fifth century contexts, the larger part of the material appears in ecclesiastical structures, but as in private secular projects, the marblework from Aliki seems to have been mixed with marble from other sources.
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