, a porphyry sculpture sacked from the Byzantine
Philadelphion palace in 1204, Treasury of St. Marks,
Venice '', an imperial porphyry head in Venice thought to represent
Justinian Antiquity and Byzantium To the Romans it was known as
Lapis porphyrites.
Pliny the Elder's
Natural History (36, 11) affirmed that the "Imperial Porphyry" had been discovered in Egypt during the reign of Tiberius; an inscription recently discovered and dated from AD 18 mentions the Roman Caius Cominius Leugas as the finder of this new quarry. Ancient Egyptians used other decorative porphyritic stones of a very close composition and appearance, but apparently remained unaware of the presence of the Roman grade although it was located in their own country, because its colour had no official value like that of Romans. It was also sometimes used in
Minoan art, and as early as 1850 BC on
Crete in
Minoan Knossos there were large column bases made of porphyry. It was called "Imperial" as the mines, as elsewhere in the empire, were owned by the emperor. The red porphyry all came from the
Gabal Abu Dukhan quarry (or
Mons Porphyrites) in the
Eastern Desert of
Egypt, from 600 million-year-old
andesite of the
Arabian-Nubian Shield. The road from the quarry westward to
Qena (Roman Maximianopolis) on the Nile, which
Ptolemy put on his second-century map, was first described by
Strabo, and it is to this day known as the
Via Porphyrites, the Porphyry Road, its track marked by the
hydreumata, or watering wells that made it viable in this utterly dry landscape. It was used for all the red porphyry columns in Rome, the
togas on busts of
emperors, the panels in the
revetment of the
Pantheon, the
Column of Constantine in Istanbul as well as the altars and vases and fountain basins reused in the
Renaissance and dispersed as far as
Kyiv. The Romans also used "Green Porphyry" (
lapis Lacedaemonius, from Greece, also known today as
Serpentine), and "Black Porphyry" from the same Egyptian quarry. After the fifth century the quarry was lost to sight for many centuries. Byzantium scholar
Alexander Vasiliev suggested this was the consequence of the
Council of Chalcedon in 451 and the subsequent troubles in
Egypt. The scientific members of the French Expedition under
Napoleon sought it in vain, and it was only when the Eastern Desert was reopened for study under
Muhammad Ali that the site was rediscovered by the English Egyptologists
James Burton and
John Gardner Wilkinson in 1823. Porphyry was extensively used in Byzantine imperial monuments, for example in
Hagia Sophia and in the "Porphyra", the official delivery room for use of pregnant Empresses in the
Great Palace of Constantinople, giving rise to the phrase "born in the purple". In general, the renowned rarity and striking appearance of porphyry in the late Roman Empire meant that its use was limited to explicitly Imperial monuments and architecture, thereby helping to emphasize the power and authority of the Emperor in the eyes of the citizens. Porphyry also stood in for the physical purple robes Roman emperors wore to show status, because of its purple colouring. Similar to porphyry, purple fabric was extremely difficult to make, as what we now call
Tyrian purple required the use of rare
sea snails to make the dye. The colour itself reminded the public how to behave in the presence of the emperors, with respect bordering on worship for the self-proclaimed god-kings.
Roman and late Roman imperial sarcophagi A uniquely prestigious use of porphyry was its choice as material for imperial
sarcophagi in the 4th and early 5th centuries. That tradition appears to have been started with
Diocletian's porphyry sarcophagus in his
mausoleum, which was destroyed when the building was repurposed as a church but of which probable fragments are at the Archaeological Museum in
Split, Croatia. The oldest and best-preserved ones are now conserved at the
Vatican Museums and known as the
Sarcophagi of Helena and Constantina. Nine other imperial porphyry sarcophagi were long held in the
Church of the Holy Apostles in
Constantinople. They were described by
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in the
De Ceremoniis (mid-10th century), who specified them to be respectively of
Constantine the Great,
Constantius II,
Julian,
Jovian,
Theodosius I,
Arcadius,
Aelia Eudoxia,
Theodosius II, and
Marcian. Of these, most still exist in complete or fragmentary form, despite depredations by later Byzantine Emperors,
Crusaders, and
Ottoman conquerors. including one whose rounded shape led
Alexander Vasiliev to suggest attribution to
Emperor Julian on the basis of Constantine Porphyrogenitus's description. Vasiliev conjectures that the nine imperial sarcophagi, including one which carries a
crux ansata or
Egyptian cross, were carved in Egypt before shipment to Constantinople. which may be the same one known as "
Dagobert's tub" (
cuve de Dagobert), now in the
Louvre. The tomb of
Peter III of Aragon, in the
Monastery of Santes Creus near
Tarragona, reuses a porphyry
tub or
alveus, which has been conjectured to be originally the sarcophagus of
Late Roman Emperor Constans in his mausoleum at
Centcelles, a nearby site with a well-preserved 4th-century
rotunda. In twelfth- and thirteenth-century
Sicily, another group of porphyry sarcophagi were produced from the reign of
Roger II onward and used for Royal and then
Imperial burials, namely those of
King Roger II,
King William I,
Emperor Henry VI,
Empress Constance, and
Emperor Frederick II. They are all now in the
Palermo Cathedral, except William's in
Monreale Cathedral. Scholar Rosa Bacile argues that they were carved by a local workshop from porphyry imported from
Rome, the latter four plausibly (based on observation of their
fluting) all from a single column shaft that may have been taken from the
Baths of Caracalla or the
Baths of Diocletian. She notes that these Sicilian porphyry sarcophagi "are the very first examples of medieval free-standing secular tombs in the West, and therefore play a unique role within the history of Italian sepulchral art (earlier and later tombs are adjacent to, and dependent on walls)." Six grand porphyry sarcophagi are featured along the walls of the octagonal
Cappella dei Principi (Chapel of the Princes) that was built as one of two
chapels in the architectural complex of the
Basilica of San Lorenzo, in Florence, Italy, for the
de' Medici family. Purple porphyry was used lavishly throughout the opulent chapel as well, with a revetment of marbles, inlaid with other colored marbles and semi-precious stone, that covers the walls completely. Envisioned by
Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1537–1574), it was initiated by
Ferdinand I de' Medici, following a design by
Matteo Nigetti that won an informal competition held in 1602 by
Don Giovanni de' Medici (a son of Cosimo I), which was altered somewhat during execution by
Buontalenti. The
tomb of Napoleon at
Les Invalides in
Paris, designed by architect
Louis Visconti, is centered on the deceased emperor's sarcophagus that often has been described as made of red porphyry although this is incorrect. Napoleon's sarcophagus is made of
quartzite, however, its
pedestal is made of green andesite porphyry from
Vosges. The sarcophagus of
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington at
St Paul's Cathedral was completed in 1858. and was made from a single piece of
Cornish porphyry, of a type called
luxullianite, which was found in a field near
Lostwithiel. File:Tomb of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor - Cathedral of Palermo - Italy 2015.jpg|Sarcophagus of
Frederick II in
Palermo Cathedral,
Sicily, made of porphyry File:Brogi, Giacomo (1822-1881) - n. 3515 - Firenze - S. Lorenzo Cappella dei Principi (1870s).jpg|Interior of the de' Medici
Cappella dei Principi in
Florence (1870s photograph) File:Tumba de Napoleon Bonaparte.jpg|Sarcophagus of Napoleon in
Les Invalides, Paris, made of
quartzite with a pedestal of green porphyry File:Tomb Wellington.jpg|Wellington's sarcophagus in the crypt of St Paul's in London made from a single block of
luxullianite porphyry ==Modern uses==