A GEOARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE ANCIENT QUARRIES OF SIDI GHEDAMSY ISLAND (MONASTIR, TUNISIA)

Abstract

Amongst a large number of ancient quarries scattered along the North African coast, those at Sidi Ghedamsy (Monastir, Tunisia) have supplied building stones of Pliocene age. Two lithofacies have been distinguished in the quarry faces: (i) fine sandy limestone, which has been used in the construction of Roman and Arabic monuments; and (ii) porous and coarse limy sandstone, which is of bad quality for construction. Laboratory analysis results confirm that the exploitation of stone in antiquity was well focused on the levels containing the first type. This is confirmed by geotechnical tests, which show that the fine sandy limestone is harder and less porous than the coarse limy sandstone. Extraction of these stones began in the Roman period. The Romans exploited the quarries using steel tools that permitted the extraction of blocks from several levels. In the eighth century, Arabic quarry workers continued the stone extraction using the same technique, but they produced blocks of small and medium size. Statistical measurements have been done on the quarry faces and on the walls of the Ribat in order to understand the degree of conformity between the dimensions of the extracted blocks and those used for building, and ultimately to attempt to date the quarries and the construction of the Ribat.