Grey limestone quarries of Byllis (Albania)
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T. Kozelj [1] ; Manuela Wurch Kozelj [1]
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[1] École Française d'Athènes, Thassos (Greece)
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- Localización: Interdisciplinary studies on ancient stone: proceedings of the IX Association for the Study of Marbles and Other Stones in Antiquity (ASMOSIA) Conference (Tarragona 2009) / coord. por Anna Gutiérrez García-Moreno, María Pilar Lapuente Mercadal, Isabel Rodà de Llanza, 2012, ISBN 978-84-939033-8-1, págs. 619-627
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
The grey limestone quarries of Byllis are mainly located at the South and the South-East cliffs of the hill, some others laying on its Eastern slopes; and some small-scale extraction areas are also obvious inside the Justinian city-walls. Examination of the open-air working faces and partial excavations of these quarries has yielded evidence of a number of remains, including: evidence of extraction (channels, wedge sockets, chisel holes, negatives of extracted blocks, etc., related to different techniques); remains of installations (specific sockets that confirm the use of hosting machines); a rock-cut basin used as a "gourna" to repair the tools; various sizes of off-cuts (either thrown down the cliff, or used to backfill channels to create a new working area suitable for further extraction); finds, as fragments of pottery, metal or stone: a whetstone; a stone wedge (which was really used for extracting blocks); a copper alloy (bronze) weight of a plumb line used to measure the slope of the layers to be extracted; and two letters carved between two sockets cut for the feet of a hoisting machine. This paper presents a preliminary report on these remains, bringing out the organization of these quarries in relation to the history of Byllis, and their particularities, such as an Early Byzantine "intra muros" quarrying activity.
