Mons Porphyrites (today Jabal Abu Dukhkhan) is the mountainous site of a group of ancient quarries in the Red Sea Hills of the Eastern Desert in Egypt. Under the Roman Empire, they were the only known source of the purple "imperial" variety of porphyry. They were exploited between the 1st and 5th centuries AD.[1] The other imperial quarries in the Eastern Desert were Mons Claudianus, Mons Ophiates and Tiberiane.[2] These four quarries were probably under a unified administration, since the same procurator metallorum is found in more than one.[3]
The quarries were discovered by Caius Cominus Leugas in AD 18. Their exploitation can be traced by hundreds of ostraca from not long after until the 430s.[1] They were accessible only by means of a circuitous branch of the road between Caene on the Nile and the Roman fort on the Red Sea coast (today Abu Sha'ar).[1][4]
Imperial porphyry mined from Mons Porphyrites
The actual quarries were spread out over 9 square kilometres (3.5sqmi).[5] There were five dispersed villages for workers and a central complex at Wadi Abu Ma'amel 630 metres (2,070ft)above sea level. The highest quarries were at Rammius at 1,438 metres (4,718ft). Quarried stone had to be dropped down slipways to the wadi below.[6] The central complex had a workers' settlement, a fort, temples to Sarapis and Isis Megiste, a bath with a hypocaust and a cemetery.[1][7] The temple of Isis can be dated to 113 and that of Sarapis to 117–119. There is evidence for blacksmithing in the workers' area. A second temple to Isis Myrionyma, dating to 137–138, lay on the other side of the wadi. The central complex had two wells and large cistern for water storage in the fort.[8]
The earliest settlement, where an inscription of Cominus Leugas is found, contains a temple to Pan.[8] Several of the villages were only occupied into the 2nd century, but there are later tombstones, pottery and coins from the higher quarries.[9] A tower at the central complex allowed for visual communication with even the most distant posts. Besides the main fort, there were also fortlets at Badia, Umm Sidri and Belia.[10]
Mons Porphyrites produced black porphyry as well as the imperial porphyry for which it is most famous.[8] The latter was used in Rome and Constantinople for decorative purposes, especially in imperial sarcophagi.[1]
Porphyry is any of various granites or igneous rocks with coarse-grained crystals such as feldspar or quartz dispersed in a fine-grained silicate-rich, generally aphanitic matrix or groundmass. In its non-geologic, traditional use, the term porphyry usually refers to the purple-red form of this stone, valued for its appearance, but other colours of decorative porphyry are also used such as "green", "black" and "grey".
Qift is a city in the Qena Governorate of Egypt about 43 km (27 mi) north of Luxor, situated a little south of latitude 26° north, on the east bank of the Nile. In ancient times its proximity to the Red Sea made it an important trading emporium between India, Punt, Felix Arabia and the North. It was important for nearby gold and quartzite mines in the Eastern Desert, and as a starting point for expeditions to Punt.
The Arabian-Nubian Shield (ANS) is an exposure of Precambrian crystalline rocks on the flanks of the Red Sea. The crystalline rocks are mostly Neoproterozoic in age. Geographically – and from north to south – the ANS includes parts of Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Yemen, and Somalia. The ANS in the north is exposed as part of the Sahara Desert and Arabian Desert, and in the south in the Ethiopian Highlands, Asir province of Arabia and Yemen Highlands.
Serapis or Sarapis is a Graeco-Egyptian god. A syncretic deity derived from the worship of the Egyptian Osiris and Apis, Serapis was extensively popularized in the third century BC on the orders of Greek Pharaoh Ptolemy I Soter, as a means to unify the Greek and Egyptian subjects of the Ptolemaic Kingdom.
The Four Crowned Martyrs or Four Holy Crowned Ones were nine individuals who are venerated as martyrs and saints of Early Christianity. The nine saints are divided into two groups:
Claudius, Castorius, Symphorian (Simpronian), Nicostratus, and Simplicius
The Limes Arabicus was a desert frontier of the Roman Empire, running north from its start in the province of Arabia Petraea. It ran northeast from the Gulf of Aqaba for about 1,500 kilometers (930 mi) at its greatest extent, reaching northern Syria and forming part of the wider Roman limes system. It had several forts and watchtowers.
The Danubian provinces of the Roman Empire were the provinces of the Lower Danube, within a geographical area encompassing the middle and lower Danube basins, the Eastern Alps, the Dinarides, and the Balkans. They include Noricum, Dacia, the northern part of Dalmatia, Moesia, Scythia Minor, and Pannonia. The Danube defined the region to the north, with the Carpathian Mountains to the north and east. These provinces were important to the Imperial economy as mining regions, and their general significance in the Empire of the 3rd century is indicated by the emperors who came from the region.
The stone quarries of ancient Egypt once produced quality stone for the construction of decorative monuments such as sculptures and obelisks. These quarries are now recognised archaeological sites. Eighty percent of the ancient quarry sites are in the Nile valley; some of them have disappeared under the waters of Lake Nasser and some others were lost due to modern mining activity.
Chemtou or Chimtou was an ancient Roman-Berber town in northwestern Tunisia, located 20 km from the city of Jendouba near the Algerian frontier. It was known as Simitthu in antiquity.
Wadi Hammamat is a dry river bed in Egypt's Eastern Desert, about halfway between Al-Qusayr and Qena. It was a major mining region and trade route east from the Nile Valley in ancient times, and three thousand years of rock carvings and graffiti make it a major scientific and tourist site today.
Mons Claudianus was a Roman quarry in the eastern desert of Egypt. It consisted of a garrison, a quarrying site, and civilian and workers' quarters. Granodiorite was mined for the Roman Empire where it was used as a building material. Mons Claudianus is located in the mountains of the Egyptian Eastern desert about midway between the Red Sea and Qena, in the present day Red Sea Governorate. Today tourists can see fragments of granite, with several artifacts such as a broken column. A number of texts written on broken pottery (ostraca) have been discovered at the site.
Verd antique, also called verde antique, marmor thessalicum, or Ophite, is a serpentinite breccia popular since ancient times as a decorative facing stone. It is a dark, dull green, white-mottled serpentine, mixed with calcite, dolomite, or magnesite, which takes a high polish. The term verd antique has been documented in English texts as early as 1745.
The Baridustae were an Illyrian tribe that lived in Dalmatia, around Bariduum, a settlement located between Salona and Servitium, more precisely 30 miles north of Salona, which has been identified with the site area of Livno, in present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are attested only in epigraphic material.
Gemellae was a Roman fort and associated camp on the fringe of the Sahara Desert in what is today part of Algeria. It is now an archaeological site, 25 km south and 19 km west of Biskra, and 5 km southwest of the present-day village of M'Lili with which it probably shares an original Berber name. It was connected by military Roman road to Castellum Dimmidi and Capsa.
The Temple of Isis and Serapis was a double temple in Rome dedicated to the Egyptian deities Isis and Serapis on the Campus Martius, directly to the east of the Saepta Julia. The temple to Isis, the Iseum Campense, stood across a plaza from the Serapeum dedicated to Serapis. The remains of the Temple of Serapis now lie under the church of Santo Stefano del Cacco, and the Temple of Isis lay north of it, just east of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Both temples were made up of a combination of Egyptian and Hellenistic architectural styles. Much of the artwork decorating the temples used motifs evoking Egypt, and they contained several genuinely Egyptian objects, such as couples of obelisks in red or pink granite from Syene.
The decline of ancient Egyptian religion is largely attributed to the spread of Christianity in Egypt. Its strict monotheistic nature did not allow the syncretism seen between ancient Egyptian religion and other polytheistic religions, such as that of the Romans. Although religious practices within Egypt stayed relatively constant despite contact with the greater Mediterranean world, such as with the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, Christianity directly competed with the native religion. Even before the Edict of Milan in AD 313, which legalised Christianity in the Roman Empire, Egypt became an early centre of Christianity, especially in Alexandria where numerous influential Christian writers of antiquity such as Origen and Clement of Alexandria lived much of their lives, and native Egyptian religion may have put up little resistance to the permeation of Christianity into the province.
Valerie Maxfield FSA is a Roman archaeologist and emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the University of Exeter. She is a specialist in the archaeology of the Roman army and frontiers, and edited the Proceedings of the Devon Archaeological Society until December 2020.
The Sardiatae or Sardiates were an Illyrian tribe that lived in Dalmatia, in the Pliva valley around the area of Jajce and Šipovo, in present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are mentioned by Pliny the Elder, who locates them in the conventus iuridicus of Salonae, and reports that they had 52 decuriae. They are also mentioned by Ptolemy, and in the Libri Coloniarum of the Gromatici Veteres along with the Tariotes.
Mines in ancient Rome used hydraulic mining and shaft mining techniques with tools such as the Archimedes screw. The materials they produced were used to craft pipes or construct buildings. Quarries were often built through trial trenching and they used tools such as wedges to break the rock apart, which would then be transported using cairns and slipways. Mines typically used slaves and lower-class individuals to extract and process ore. Usually their working conditions were dangerous and inhumane, resulting in frequent accidents and even suicidal ideation. These areas were divided into districts and were regulated by several laws such as the lex metalli vispascensis.
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