The Provenance of Marbles and Alabasters Used in the Monuments of Hierapolis in Phrygia (Turkey): New Information from a Systematic Review and Integration of Archaeological and Archaeometric Data

Giuseppe Scardozzi

doi:10.3390/heritage2010035

Abstract

Determining the provenance of the stones used for ancient architectures is very important in order to reconstruct many social and economic questions linked to the life of a city. This paper integrates previous and new archaeometric data about marble and alabaster quarries in south-western Phrygia (Lykos valley), and offers a review of some results of the research activities carried out between the years 2013–2018 and aimed to reconstruct the building stone procurement strategies adopted in the city of Hierapolis in Phrygia across a broad chronological time span from the Hellenistic age to the Byzantine period. The research activities based on a multidisciplinary approach, integrating the archaeological and art-historian study of the monuments, the topographical investigation of the quarries, and the archaeometric characterisation both of extraction sites and marbles and alabasters used in the building sites of the urban area and in the necropolises.

Highlights

Determining the provenance of the stones used for ancient architectures is very important in order to reconstruct many social and economic questions linked to the life of a city
The archaeometric characterization of the quarry faces (Tables 1 and A1 in Appendix A; Figure 3A–D; Figures 4 and 5), thanks to the collection and analyses of 135 samples and the integration of these data with those already available in the literature [35,36], allowed for the discrimination of both these marbles among them and from the other white marbles extracted in southwestern Anatolia in antiquity [38]
The multidisciplinary research performed in recent years has made it possible to build a solid base of knowledge on many aspects of the history of Hierapolis, such as (i) the exploitation of the natural resources of the territory, (ii) the detailed archaeometric characterization of the white marble quarries of its territory and the whole Lykos valley, (iii) the building stone procurement strategies adopted during the city’s long life

Summary

Introduction

Determining the provenance of the stones used for ancient architectures is very important in order to reconstruct many social and economic questions linked to the life of a city. This paper integrates previous and new archaeometric data about marble and alabaster quarries in south-western. Phrygia (Lykos valley), and offers a review of some results of the research activities carried out between the years 2013–2018 and aimed to reconstruct the building stone procurement strategies adopted in the city of Hierapolis in Phrygia across a broad chronological time span from the Hellenistic age to the Byzantine period. The research activities based on a multidisciplinary approach, integrating the archaeological and art-historian study of the monuments, the topographical investigation of the quarries, and the archaeometric characterisation both of extraction sites and marbles and alabasters used in the building sites of the urban area and in the necropolises. The main focus of the research carried out from 2013 in Hierapolis of Phrygia

Methods

Results

Conclusion