I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately. I’ve been too focused on writing and keeping ahead of a seemingly endless array of (possibly pointless) administrative tasks that I’ve struggled to slow down and just read. In fact, I’m excited about my impending travel not because I like travel (I hate it), but because I’ll have time and excuse to slow down and read something. 

As a tiny salve to my funk, I decided to read a recent piece in the American Journal of Archaeology on the distribution of Early Byzantine (4th-6th century) marble in the Southern Levant. It’s a good article that broaches several issues that I’ve found interesting at various points of my career. Like Cyprus, the southern Levant does not have marble; all marble present there is imported. The article compares the distribution of Roman period marbles to Early Byzantine marble and maps their location against a number of different GIS datasets ranging from digital elevation models to maps of soils, Roman roads, and reconstructed coastlines. This data produces a series of nine zones defined by the travel time from the coast. The authors then documented the percentage of sites within those zones that included marble and whenever possible excluded marble in reuse.

The results were interesting! Roman sites in general produce less marble, but more larger fragments of marble. This marble was largely concentrated in urban areas within 4 days travel from the coast. The Early Byzantine period not only saw more marble at sites throughout the region, but also marble at sites further inland (based on days of travel). Early Byzantine marble tends to be smaller than Roman marble and more likely to appear outside of urban areas. Indeed, the authors argue that the proliferation of churches and monasteries, many with wealthy or even imperial patrons, led to more marble being transported to more remote inland sites. The distance from the coast and the smaller size led the authors to conclude that in the Roman period, marble was moved by ox cart, but during the Early Byzantine period, pack animals moved the smaller marble pieces. 

I have three thoughts:

1. Smaller Marble Pieces. The pieces of marble from the Early Byzantine period are significant smaller than those from the Roman period. It makes sense that these are transported via pack animal. It also makes a bit harder to know whether than are reused marble from earlier Roman period structures. While I trust the authors did due diligence and some forms of marble — such as Proconnesian — are more likely associated with Early Byzantine quarries and therefore unlikely to be in reuse irrespective of their size, I am still curious about how they know that small pieces aren’t just in reuse.

Another related aspect is whether marble is transported as small pieces rather than larger pieces available for adaptation on site. While it makes sense according to the logic of the authors’ argument that pack animals would transport smaller pieces of marble, there is plenty of evidence for the final production of marble architectural decorations on site. 

2. Churches and Marble. It is fascinating to see evidence that monastic, ecclesiastical, and liturgical architecture demands marble decoration in ways that Roman period rural sanctuaries (or other prestige rural structures) evidently did not. Of course, the authors are clear that Roman society in the Levant is largely urban and certain areas, such as Samaria, had strong limits on the use of imported and non-local materials. The presence of marble at Early Byzantine rural sites however indicates an interest not only in setting these monuments apart from earlier (Roman) period urban sites, but also asserting the (literally) urbane character of both the faith and the donors whose commitment have caused them to build the church or monastery. (The Desert, a City, amIright?)

It seems reasonable to argue that use of marble in these buildings alludes to use of marble in earlier urban areas as well as other imperial or elite foundations. In other words, it situates these buildings without a discourse of design that is both long-standing and deliberately deployed in an area where marble has the additional benefit of being hard to acquire, transport, and, presumably owing to the first and second issues, to work.

3. New Forms of Community. Of course, as much as I’m interested in the material affordances of transporting marble, I’m more interested in how these affordances construct and reflect new forms of community. On a simple level, moving marble by pack animal requires the organization of drovers to move objects. It also likely involves the movement of masons to rural areas along with other specialized experts required to construct monumental buildings in rural areas using non-local material. The movement of people and material would have undoubtedly created a sense of anticipation especially as it anticipates the movement of pilgrims from coastal sites to rural sites of sacred significance.

The willingness to invest in architecture in remote rural areas likewise suggests a new social and political economy of display. Laborers, specialists, pilgrims, and elites effectively followed the marble. It goes without saying that their funds did as well.   

Needless to say, I enjoyed this article in that it stimulated as many questions as it provided answers.