The removal of a piece of stone from the rockface, quarrying is the first stage of any carving project that is not using secondhand material. Quarrying in the Roman period was undertaken with the quarry pick and wedge. Channels would be cut along the sides and rear of the block that was to be removed with the pick and then wedges would be inserted along its bottom and hammered in to split it from the rockface. In later periods explosives were used to dislodge material from the rockface. Modern quarrying is usually done with diamond wire saws.
