Mons Claudianus was a Roman quarry

Quarry

A quarry is a type of open-pit mine from which rock or minerals are extracted. Quarries are generally used for extracting building materials, such as dimension stone, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, and gravel. They are often collocated with concrete and asphalt plants due to the requirement...

 in the eastern desert of Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

. It consisted of a garrison, a quarrying site and civilian and workers quarters.Granodiorite

Granodiorite

Granodiorite is an intrusive igneous rock similar to granite, but containing more plagioclase than orthoclase-type feldspar. Officially, it is defined as a phaneritic igneous rock with greater than 20% quartz by volume where at least 65% of the feldspar is plagioclase. It usually contains abundant...

 was mined for the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

 where it was used as a building material. Mons Claudianus is located in the mountains of the Egyptian Eastern desert about midway between the Red Sea

Red Sea

The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...

 and Qena

Qena

Qena is a city in Upper Egypt, and the capital of the Qena Governorate. Situated on the east bank of the Nile, it was known as Kaine during the Greco-Roman period and as Cainepolis in antiquity.- Overview :...

.
Today tourists can see fragments of granite, with several artifacts such as a broken column. A number of texts written on broken pottery (ostraca) have been discovered at the site.

Discovery and location

Mons Claudianus lies in the Eastern desert of upper Egypt, and was discovered in 1823 by Wilkinson and Burton. It lies north of Luxor, between the Egyptian town of Qena on the Nile and Hurghada on the Red Sea, 500km south of Cairo and 120 km east of the Nile, at an altitude of c.700m in the heart of the Red Sea mountains.About 50 km away is another imperial stone quarry known as Mons Porphyrites,which is the world's only known source of purple porphyry

Porphyry

Porphyry may refer to:* Porphyry , an igneous rock with large crystals in a fine-grained matrix, or associated mineral deposit** Porphyry copper deposit, a primary ore deposit of copper, consisting of porphyry rocks...

.

Time line

The excavation

Excavation

The term archaeological excavation has a double meaning.# Excavation is best known and most commonly used within the science of archaeology. In this sense it is the exposure, processing and recording of archaeological remains....

 of Mons Claudianus by the Romans occurred through 2 centuries, from the 1^st Century AD to the mid 3^rd century AD. There is no evidence of settlements near or at the quarry prior to the Roman settlement.The arid conditions of the desert allowed the documents and organic remains to survive.

Harvesting and use of resources

Mons Claudianus was an abundant source of Granodiorite

Granodiorite

Granodiorite is an intrusive igneous rock similar to granite, but containing more plagioclase than orthoclase-type feldspar. Officially, it is defined as a phaneritic igneous rock with greater than 20% quartz by volume where at least 65% of the feldspar is plagioclase. It usually contains abundant...

 for Rome, and was used in notable Roman structures including the emperor Hadrian's villa at Tivoli, public baths, the floors and columns of the temple of Venus, Diocletian's Palace at Split and the columns of the portico

Portico

A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls...

 of the Pantheon

Pantheon, Rome

The Pantheon ,Rarely Pantheum. This appears in Pliny's Natural History in describing this edifice: Agrippae Pantheum decoravit Diogenes Atheniensis; in columnis templi eius Caryatides probantur inter pauca operum, sicut in fastigio posita signa, sed propter altitudinem loci minus celebrata.from ,...

 in Rome were quarried at Mons Claudianus. Each was 39 feet (11.9 m) tall, five feet (1.5 m) in diameter, and 60 tons in weight.

Access routes and Transport

Mons Claudianus was linked to the river Nile by a traceable surviving Roman road marked by way-stations spaced out at one day intervals. The stones from the quarries which were shaped in the desert were then taken along the road to the Nile Valley for trans-shipment to Rome. Documents that were found on site referred to 12-wheeled and 4-wheeled carts, and include a request for delivery of new axles. The journey would be last approximately 5 days or longer. The way-stations,which resembled small defended 'forts', with many rooms accompanied by stabling and a water-supply, served as motels where the men and animals moving the stones could rest,eat and drink. Donkeys may have been used to transport food and water needed by men between way-stations as well as pull the wagons, however for larger loads it seemed both human and animal labour was used. Camels were used for communication and for the transport of food and water.
The columns may have also been dragged more than 100 km from the quarry to the river on wooden sledges. They were floated by barge down the Nile River when the water level was high during the spring floods, and then transferred to vessels to cross the Mediterranean Sea

Mediterranean Sea

The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

 to the Roman port of Ostia

Ostia

Ostia may refer to:*Ostia , a municipio of Rome on the Tyrrhenian Sea coast*Ostia Antica, a township and port of ancient Rome*Ostia Antica , a district of the commune of Rome...

. There, they were transferred back onto barges and pulled up the Tiber River to Rome.

Life in Mons Claudianus

The quarry was administered by the Roman army. The quarry men of Mons Claudianus were a skilled and well-paid civilian workforce and their lifestyle at the the quarry could even be described as luxurious. The Ostraca refer to 4 groups of people: soldiers and officials; skilled, civilian workers; unskilled workers; and women and children. According to the Ostraca ( earthen pots with inscriptions on them) Many of the workers at Mons Claudianus earned around 47 drachmas a month -which was about twice as much as their counterparts in the Nile Valley as well as one 'artab' which was approximately 47 pints of wheat.. Evidence has been found of 55 different foodplants and 20 sources of animal proteins. Fish from the red sea, luxuries like artichoke and citron as well as pepper from India and Game animals, snails and oysters were a some of the food available. Findings of seeds of Cabbage , leaf beet , lettuce, mint, basil and a few others, which would not have been present if the vegetables were delivered to eat suggest that, food was both delivered and grown at Mons Claudianus, to maintain the health of the workers with proper iron and vitamin C intake. Germinated, carbonised barley grains have been found, suggesting the inhabitants brewed beer.Imported chaff, straw, barley grain, charcoal and midden material were used for animal fodder and to as temper for the making of wall plaster and mudbrick and for fuel foe the ovens and fires. At Quarries, several columns, some basins and a bath can still be found lying broken; largest column was 60ft high and weighing some 200 tonnes. Many buildings still survive, intact to roof height. The settlement resembled a fort with walls and projecting towers. Housed an estimated 1000 people, quarrymen and guards. The stones from the quarries, which were shaped in the desert, possibly to reduce its weight, were taken to the Nile Valley to be shipped to Rome.