Egypt

Auction: Roman statue of purple porphyry

News-Antique

I've added this only because the statue in question was made from a stone exclusively available from the Eastern Desert of Egypt and quarried from there during the Roman period. The settlement built to accompany the site was called Mons Porphyrites and is now in ruins. There are still outcrops of the stone, a remarkable shade of purple with white speckles.

On June 4, Christie’s New York is pleased to offer an exquisite Roman statue of the goddess Tyche (estimate on request). Standing 31 ½ inches high, and executed in the rarest of materials: porphyry. The statue was formerly in the private collection of Dr. Elie Borowski, collector and connoisseur of ancient art, who acquired it in 1967. It was on loan to the sculpture museum Liebighaus in Frankfurt, Germany from 1980-1986, and later exhibited at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto from 1986-1991.

“This is the most spectacular and beautiful sculpture that I have ever had the pleasure to work with,” says G. Max Bernheimer, International Head of the Antiquities department. “The fact that it’s still in impeccable condition, makes it all the more exceptional.”

Porphyry was highly regarded for its color, since purple was symbolic of high rank and authority. The stone was quarried in Egypt’s eastern desert, near Mons Porphyrites, known today as Gebel Kokham. The raw material was transported overland to Qena, ancient Kainopolis, on the Nile, and then by boat north to Alexandria and then on to Rome. During the Roman Period, the quarries were traditionally understood to have been under the direct control of the emperor. The stone was only sporadically used during the 1st Century A.D., reaching its first peak of use during the reigns of the emperors Trajan 98-117 A.D. and Hadrian 117-138 A.D. and again in the 4th Century. It was used for statuary, architectural elements including columns and floor paving, decorative urns and basins, and for imperial sarcophagi. Most porphyry statuary, as with the present example, was finished as a composite work of art, with the head, hands and feet made from a contrasting material, usually white marble.

See the above page for more details and a photograph of the statue.

If you want to find out more about this remarkable stone and the quarrying of it, there's a summary and a set of references on the Mons Porphyrites section on my Eastern Desert site.

- New Book: Mons Claudianus. Ostraca Graeca Et Latina Iv
What's New in Papyrology Adam Bülow-Jacobsen, Mons Claudianus. Ostraca graeca et latina IV The international excavations at Mons Claudianus (1987-1993) in the Eastern Desert with the collaboration of the IFAO produced over 9000, mostly Greek, ostraca....

- Quarryscapes Website Updated
QuarryScapes Publications It is good to see that the website for a very useful project has been updated with an expanded bibliography and some online publications (thanks to Per Storemyr for letting me know). The QuarryScapes project was first established...

- Daily Photo - Mons Claudianus, Eastern Desert
I am a bit up to my ears in things today, but if you'd like to know more about Mons Claudianus, a Roman quarrying site and settlement in the Eastern Desert, have a look at this page on one of my other sites, where there is a section about Mons Claudianus...

- Weekly Websites
Quseir al-Qadim Project http://www.arch.soton.ac.uk/Projects/default.asp?ProjectID=20This project focuses on the site of Quseir al-Qadim on the southern Egyptian Red Sea coast, and its surrounding landscape. The project is a collaboration between researchers...

- Weekly Websites
Another collection of fairly random websites that I have been visiting this week. Don't forget to let me know of any websites of interest that you have found. Delta Survey http://www.ees.ac.uk/deltasurvey/ds-home.html "This reference collection of...

Egypt