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Source Image: PR927_01_22 of Carrara Quarries

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Description

Large modern quarry at Carrara.

Monument
Carrara Quarries 
Monument Type
Quarry 
Material(s)
Luna Marble (Archaeometric identification)  
Date
post bc 50 
Keywords
Quarryface  
Collections
Italy Carrara  

Location

Original Location
Carrara 

Evidence for working practices

1. Quarry-face

Process
Quarrying
Description
The quarrymen at the bottom of this large quarry are cutting down into the marble using a long machine-powered wire saw which has created the deep cut running diagonally across the image. The flat surfaces on the rock-faces attest to the use of this saw during earlier phases of work as well.

Notes

The quarries at Carrara, near ancient Luna, are among the largest in the world and an important hub of the international marble trade. Large-scale quarrying in this region started under Julius Caesar and continued through the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. For much of this period Luna marble was the most commonly imported white marble at Rome. Later quarrying has destroyed many of the remains of ancient quarrying at Carrara. Several varieties of white marble are quarried at Carrara as well as a streaked grey variety called Bardiglio.

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