Mons Claudianus
 
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Location of Mons Claudianus in Egypt
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The Mons Claudianus is an ancient quarry in the Arabian desert at the Gebel Fatireh. It is located in Egypt between Qena (Kainopolis) on the Nile (north of Luxor , 100 km as the crow flies ) and Safaga on the Red Sea (45 km), near Wadi Fatiri el-Bayda in a completely unpopulated area in the Red Sea Governorate . Hurghada is 55 km northeast of the quarry. Granite ( granodiorite ) was mined here between the late 1st and the middle of the 3rd century AD .
Stone and use
The stone standing here is a light gray gneiss with greenish-black sprinkles. The Romans called the material marble Claudianum . The Italian name "granito del foro" means where the material was used. The material was also used in many other magnificent Roman buildings, for example in the Pantheon in Rome . Some unfinished or broken objects remained in the quarry, such as a column weighing about 200 tons. In medieval buildings in Cairo , granite is found as flooring and wall cladding, probably mostly in secondary use.
Work organization
The quarry probably belonged to the emperor himself, the administration was subject to the army. As excavations revealed worked in the quarry not slaves, but specialized workers. Their food shows that they lived in fairly comfortable conditions.
Infrastructure
The quarry was connected to the Nile Valley by a road. The transport of the half-finished stones on four- to twelve-axle wagons into the Nile Valley took at least five days. At daily intervals there were small camps ( hydreumata ) on the road that served as night shelters. They contained bedrooms, stables and cisterns.
The course of the road can still be seen in the terrain today. Around 125 piles of reading stones and towers marked their route, perhaps they also served as signal stations. The area was also monitored and served by about sixty smaller army bases. They also secured supplies to the coastal stations on the Red Sea in the south and the Mons Porphyrites quarry .
The road between Abu Sha'ar and its military camp and Kainopolis was used between the 1st and 7th centuries AD; until the end of the 3rd century for stone transport, after the reform of the border defense by Diocletian and Constantine it was part of the Limes . After that, pilgrims may have traveled to the shrines on the northern Red Sea, Sinai and the Holy Land. This is also indicated by the existence of a church in Mons Porphyrites .
settlement
The quarry workers' settlement was fortified with walls and towers. It can be assumed that a thousand people lived here. The accommodations are often still up to the roof, as no later stone robbery took place in this remote area.
exploration
The quarry was discovered by travelers in the 19th century. In 1961 and 1964, the Cairo Department of the German Archaeological Institute carried out research there. Excavations took place from 1987 to 1993 under the direction of Jean Bingen ( University of Brussels ) and through an Egyptian-British project under David Peacock ( University of Southampton ) and Valerie Maxfield ( University of Exeter ).
Finds
Due to the extreme drought, organic materials have been preserved here. Around 50,000 textile fragments were found - one of the largest corpora of Roman textiles at all. Baskets, shoes, ropes and scraps of papyrus as well as animal bones and plant remains were also found, which make it possible to reconstruct the diet of the workers.
The most important finds include almost 10,000 described shards ( ostraka ), which provide information about the administration and living conditions of the workers. For example, the wages of the workers are recorded on these shards, which were significantly higher than in the Nile Valley. Most of the shards relate to material requirements, for example car axles. After delivery, the broken pieces were thrown away. Most of the sherds described were no longer found in the primary context, but on the streets, in abandoned buildings or as backfilling of recesses in the terrain or construction sites. The pottery comes mainly from Egyptian workshops, but there are also imports from the eastern Mediterranean, Cyrenaica , North Africa, Spain and Gaul.
nutrition
Wheat, barley, lentils, dates, olives, onions and donkey meat as well as fish from the Red Sea formed the basis of the diet . These were complemented with lemons , artichokes, walnuts, pine nuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pomegranates , watermelon cucumbers and even oysters . Pepper , imported from India, was used as a spice. Hunting was also done to a limited extent.
The seeds of cabbage, swede, cress , chicory , mint and basil have also been found, perhaps these plants were grown on site. Sprouted barley indicates that beer was also brewed on site . Finds of imported amphorae show that the workers or the garrison were also supplied with olive oil, defrutum (concentrated grape juice), garum (fish sauce) and wine.
Barley and threshing residues were also used as fodder. Dung and charcoal were used as fuel.
More Roman quarries in the eastern desert
- Wadi Hammamat (Mons Basanites): lapis hexacontalithos
- Mons Porphyrites : Porphyry , lapis porphyrites
- Wadi Barud: marble Tiberianum
- Wadi Umm Schegilat, diorite
- Wadi Umm Esch, serpentinite , lapis batrachites
literature
- Georg Schweinfurth : An abandoned desert city. Reports about Roman quarries in the eastern Egyptian desert. In: Die Gartenlaube 40, 1885, pp. 650–653 ( digitized version ).
- Kurt Sethe : Claudianus mons . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume III, 2, Stuttgart 1899, Col. 2661.
- Georg Schweinfurth: African sketchbook . Berlin 1925, Chapter VII: A Roman desert town and the quarries on Mons Claudianus ( digitized version ).
- Theodor Kraus , Josef Röder: Mons Claudianus. Report on a reconnaissance trip in March 1961 . In: Communications from the German Archaeological Institute, Cairo Department, Vol. 18, 1962, pp. 80–120
- Theodor Kraus, Josef Röder, Wolfgang Müller-Wiener : Mons Claudianus - Mons Porphyrites. Report on the second research trip in 1964 . In: Communications of the German Archaeological Institute, Cairo Department, Vol. 22, 1967, pp. 109–205.
- Lise Bender Jørgensen: Textiles from Mons Claudianus. A preliminary report. In: Acta Hyperborea Vol. 3, 1991, pp. 83-95.
- Jean Bingen et al .: Mons Claudianus. Ostraca Graeca et Latina I & II. Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale du Caire, Cairo 1992, 1997.
- Adam Bülow-Jacobsen (med et bidrag af Hélène Cuvigny): Mons Claudianus. Organization, administration and technology in and romersk stenbrud fra kejsertiden. Study from Sprogog Oldtidsforskningen, Copenhagen 1996.
- Adam Bülow-Jacobsen: Mons Claudianus: Roman granite-quarry and station on the road to the Red Sea . In: Acta Hyperborea 1, 1988, pp. 159-165.
- Adam Bülow-Jacobsen: Mons Claudianus. Ostraca Graeca et Latina IV. The Quarry-Texts (O. Claud. 632-896) . Institut français d'archéologie orientale, Cairo 2009.
- Hélène Cuvigny: Mons Claudianus. Ostraca Graeca et Latina III. Les reçus pour avances à la familia (O. Claud. 417 à 631). Institut français d'archéologie orientale, Cairo 2000.
- James A. Harrell: Decorative stones in the Preottoman Islamic buildings of Cairo, Egypt. Part I: Description of stone varieties . University of Toledo 2001, revised February 8, 2003.
- Ulla Mannering: Roman Garments from Mons Claudianus . In: Dominque Cardon, Michel Feugère (ed.): Archeology des textiles des origines au Ve siècle. Actes du colloque de Lattes, Octobre 1999. Editions Monique Mergoil, Montagnac 2000, pp. 283-290.
- Valerie A. Maxfield, David Peacock: Survey and excavation: Mons Claudianus 1987-1993. Institut français d'archéologie Orientale, Cairo
- Volume 1: Topography and Quarries . Cairo 1997.
- Volume 2, 1: Excavations. Cairo 2001.
- Volume 3: Roberta S. Tomber: Ceramic vessels & related objects . Cairo 2006.
- Valerie A. Maxfield: Stone Quarrying in the Eastern Desert with Particular Reference to Mons Claudianus and Mons Porphyrites. In: David Mattingly , John Salmon (Eds.): Economies Beyond Agriculture in the Classical World. (= Leicester-Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society Vol. 9). Routledge, London 2001, ISBN 0-415-21253-7 , pp. 143-170.
- Steven E. Sidebotham: Newly Discovered Sites in the Eastern Desert. In: Journal of Egyptian Archeology Vol. 82, 1996, pp. 181-192.
- Steven E. Sidebotham, Ronald E. Zitterkopf, John A. Riley: Survey of the 'Abu Sha'ar-Nile Road. In: American Journal of Archeology Vol. 95, 1991, pp. 571-622.
- Roberta Tomber: Early Roman Pottery from Mons Claudianus. In: Cahiers de la Céramique Égyptienne Vol. 3, 1992, pp. 137-142.
- Marijke van der Veen: The plant remains from Mons Claudianus, a Roman quarry settlement in the Eastern Desert of Egypt - an interim report. In: Vegetation History and Archaeobotany. Vol. 5, 1996, pp. 137-141.
- Marijke van der Veen, Sheila Hamilton-Dyer: A life of luxury in the desert? The food and fodder supply to Mons Claudianus. In: Journal of Roman Archeology Vol. 11, 1998, pp. 101-116.
- Marijke van der Veen: The food and fodder supply to the Roman quarry settlements in the Eastern desert of Egypt. In: Marijke van der Veen (Ed.): The exploitation of plant resources in Ancient Africa. Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers, New York 1999, pp. 171-183
Web links
Coordinates: 26 ° 48 ′ 33 ″ N , 33 ° 29 ′ 13 ″ E
Individual evidence
- ^ Marc Waelkens, Norman Herz, Luc Moens: Ancient Stones. In: University Press, Leuven 1992, p. 167.
- ^ Valerie A. Maxfield: Stone Quarrying in the Eastern Desert with Particular Reference to Mons Claudianus and Mons Porphyrites. In: David Mattingly, John Salmon (Eds.): Economies Beyond Agriculture in the Classical World. (= Leicester-Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society Vol. 9). Routledge, London 2001, ISBN 0-415-21253-7 , pp. 143-170, especially p. 158.