Aegean Marble

In an article on the difficulty of identifying marbles from the Aegean area Mr. Colin Renfrew and Dr. J. Springer Peacey rightly criticize the careless use by later scholars of the results obtained in 1890 by G. R. Lepsius, who, by cutting thin sections of various marbles and examining them under transmitted light, claimed to be able to identify Pentelic, Hymettan, Parian, Naxian, and, less specifically, ‘Island’ marbles. It seems, however, that even when applied with care the method is useless, and Renfrew and Peacey will have none of it. ‘The use’, they say, ‘of the terms “Pentelic”, “Hymettan”, “Parian”, “Naxian”, and so forth, applied to ancient sculptures on the basis of simple visual inspection or of microscopic examination of thin specimens, is not justified.... No single characteristic or combination of characteristics is sufficient to identify with certainty the source of a single given specimen.... No reliance can be placed on Lepsius' marble identifications, and even less [ sic ] on those authors who have ascribed marble to supposed sources on the basis of colour and grainsize.... Those who make them or follow them are perpetuating a myth which is just eighty years old...’

Art history · Certainty · Epistemology · Mythology · Sculpture · Simple (philosophy · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Archaeological Research and Protection · Classics · Geology · Historical and Architectural Studies · History · Philosophy

• The Rods of Digenis

  Open Access•M K Durkin, Carol J Lister•The Annual of the British School…•1983

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• The Art and Architecture of Lepcis Magna

  Open Access•Hafed Walda, Susan P Walker et al.•Libyan Studies•1984

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• Marble origins by isotopic analysis

  Susan Walker•World Archaeology•1984

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