White dolomitic marble with large crystals was quarried on Thasos at Saliara and Vathy. The enormous quarries here show the scale of demand for this material which was available in large blocks and is uniformly white. Thasian marble, though, is notoriously hard and can be difficult to carve in fine detail. Despite this, Thasian white marble was very popular for imperial portraits and also for sarcophagi, many of which were exported to Rome.
