The production cycle of marmor in the Iberian peninsula
since Antiquity II: Extraction and transport.
The Iberian Peninsula is a region of great geological richness.
In its subsoil and distributed throughout its geography,
stone resources are abundant,
including marble, granite, limestone.
This wealth has generated an important economic activity
that has left its mark on extensive landscapes.
In some of these areas,
such as Estremoz, Almadén de la Plata,
Mijas, Macael, L`Ènova or Espejón,
to name only a few examples,
geological and archaeological studies
have shown that the exploitation of mineral resources
has taken place almost without interruption
over centuries
thus creating landscapes and cultures
in which stone is the undisputed protagonist.
The different colours of the geological map
of the Iberian Peninsula,
correspond to the different materials that can be studied.
When we talk about ornamental rocks, and mainly marbles,
in the geological sense,
we must look for areas that have been affected by metamorphism,
or several phases of metamorphism.
Where are these found?
Well, mainly in the Hesperian Massif, an ancient massif,
and, particularly, in the Ossa Morena zone.
Here, there are two important marble areas:
the anticlines of Estremoz and Almadén de la Plata.
But also in the Alpine Chains,
such as the Baetic System and the Pyrenees.
In the Alpine Chains,
there are another two important marble districts:
Mijas-Coín, in the province of Málaga
and, of course, Macael;
in the case of the Pyrenees,
although we have studied materials on both sides of the mountains,
the outcrops and quarries
are located only on the French side.
In order to complete the survey of Iberian Peninsula,
we have recently been working
with the marbles of Galicia,
among which the most important quarries are those of O Incio.
Extraction and transport are
the first phases of the production cycle of marmor.
These tasks are characterised by their technical complexity,
due to the difficulties involved in the cutting of large blocks,
as well as in the movement of these heavy volumes.
Through a range of archaeological and documentary sources,
we can appreciate how, until well into the 20th century,
these activities were carried out by means of artisanal processes,
inherited from a long tradition dating back to very ancient times
and based on physical labour.
The most common method of extraction,
used throughout pre-industrial times,
consists of cutting deep grooves around the block,
in order to delimit the sides of the volume to be removed.
The complete separation of the block
may be achieved by the use of the pick or similar metal tools,
and may be aided by the introduction
of wedges of iron or soaked wood in order to increase
the pressure along the fissure
or stratification lines of the stone.
The wedges are driven into the stone with mallets or hammers,
creating cracks
that will help to separate the block from the outcrop.
All of these tools and processes
leave characteristic traces on the quarry face,
that enable us to identify the working techniques that were used
and, even, the negative imprints of the extracted blocks.
These evidences form part of the landscapes
of the quarry works,
conditioned by the characteristics
and quality of the material under exploitation.
These large productive areas sometimes extend over
tens of thousands of square metres.
An excellent example
of the extractive capacity in Antiquity
is the so-called "needle" of the quarries of El Mèdol, in Tarragona.
This 20-metre-high obelisk
bears witness to the enormous volume
of stone extracted from these quarries
between the 2nd century BC and the 1st century AD.
The quarry area extends over 80,000 square metres,
from which over 150,000 cubic metres of stone were extracted
and used in the construction of the buildings
and infrastructures of the Roman city of Tarraco.
Characterised by vertical quarry faces
and by abundant traces of the work of the Roman quarrymen,
the central area known as "the pit" is most noteworthy,
now covered by a thick forest and presided over by the "needle".
The quarry of El Mèdol is one of the monuments
included in the UNESCO declaration
of World Heritage of the city of Tarragona.
In addition to its archaeological importance,
this site is a paradigmatic example
of how an industrial area has become
a unique natural landscape,
with characteristic vegetation and fauna.
After the stone is extracted,
the first phase of work on the blocks
was often carried out at the quarry itself,
in order to create rough shapes of architectural
or even sculptural elements, as is illustrated by the remains
of a magnificent Roman marble sculpture of a figure in toga
from Vila Viçosa,
near the Portuguese city of Évora.
The first cutting
and roughing out of the stone at the quarry was carried out
with percussion tools
such as hammers or mallets, and different types of chisels.
In this way,
a large part of the excess material was removed in the quarry itself,
thus significantly reducing the volume and weight
of stone to be transported.
The complexity of the organisation
of the tasks carried out in the quarries,
necessary for the completion of all of the phases of the work,
has been a constant up until the present day.
We must bear in mind that there are two types of stonemason:
those who work on site and those who work in the quarry.
The work in the quarry has always been very hard and very dangerous,
and requires the implementation of a strict organisation
in which the activities of each type of worker
are clearly defined,
but it also requires the work to be carried out
with almost millimetre precision.
The most basic operation is the extraction of stone with wedges,
which was carried out by unqualified workers.
Once they had obtained the block,
it passed directly to the stone cutters,
who were already more skilled stonemasons
and could give it a rough shape
using hand saws, picks and hammers.
The remains of rough forms
were sometimes left in the quarries.
An exceptional group
of abandoned elements is kept in the grounds
of the castle of Vila Viçosa,
including several architectural elements and sarcophagi,
the forms of which had been roughed out
but were left at the quarry without being completed.
The ownership of stone quarries
has also varied throughout History
and in different geographical areas.
In Roman times, the quarries of the most valuable materials
were often owned by the Emperor.
However, many quarries have,
throughout their life, been communal property,
belonging to municipalities or communities,
although this regime is, today, almost completely lost.
The case of Macael is exceptional, in which the rich marble resources
have historically been "free and common to all",
as indicated in the cadastre of Macael" of 1573,
and have been exploited communally by the locals.
The quarries have always been communal,
as part of their Muslim heritage.
At the beginning of the 20th century, at the time of the Confiscations,
there was an attempt by the local headmen
to privatise the quarries and this was taken to the Courts.
The trial began in 1919
and, thanks to the struggle of the quarry workers and their families,
it ended in 1947
when the final sentence was ruled,
declaring the quarries public.
They are the only public quarries in the whole of Spain.
Quarry work has entailed serious risks for the quarrymen
who, still a few decades ago,
worked with very little protection or adequate equipment.
Over the centuries,
many workers have been the victims of tragic accidents,
falls and crushing,
as is documented in some archives from the Modern Era.
This is the case of the records of the construction
of the monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial
in the second half of the 16th century.
The work in the quarries was very dangerous
and most of the accidents
were derived from the use of tools,
the displacement of stones and from collapse,
whether they were open-air or underground quarries.
We have records, for example, of the death caused by
a hammer that slipped out of the hands of the quarryman
and hit another man’s head,
or we also know of the death of a wheelwright
who was crushed by a stone while it was being moved.
The death rate was usually very high
and, if we look at the archives from El Escorial,
it did not only affect the workers but also the foreman.
I have seen many fatal accidents.
Here, the trumpets were blown
when it was death, the conch shell,
when there were three blasts it was death;
it sounded: piiii, piiii, piiii, it was death!
Perhaps because of the danger involved in the work
and the adverse living conditions endured by the workers,
quarries have always been the location of chapels
and religious images and celebrations.
A magnificent example has survived since Antiquity
in the quarries of Estremoz in Portugal,
Roman bas-relief representing an aquatic personification
was carved on the quarry face.
In ancient times,
water would have flowed under it through a crack in the rock,
as it does in present-day quarries
when the quarry face undercuts the water table.
All of these customs created a traditional way of life
for entire communities over generations
and have passed on a valuable material and immaterial culture.
The family household was involved in the upholding
and transmission of the culture of stone.
The traditional craft of stone masonry
was often passed down from father to son.
At an early age,
young boys began to carry out the simplest tasks
in order to learn the basic skills of the trade.
I started working in the workshops first;
my father, may he rest in peace, sent me
to make the sides of the bases,
and when my father saw that I could manage,
he took me to the quarry to make mortars.
Women also played an important role
in the economy and way of life of the quarries.
Although they were usually away from the work
in the extraction and transformation areas,
they were responsible for the care and support
of the workers and their families.
Well, she would prepare his basket, his food, quietly,
she would take it to a specific place,
because in the village there were,
I don't know, if there were two or three places
where the baskets were collected,
which used to be at 10 o'clock in the morning.
And then the muleteers would take them
and they would be distributed
at around half past twelve in the morning.
So that the quarrymen knew which basket was theirs,
it was normally the napkin, the colour of the napkin,
or the chain around the napkin,
the initials of each person's name were marked
with paint on the top of the basket.
In the 20th century, and in parallel to
the industrial electrification of the Iberian Peninsula,
the extraction process was transformed
by the introduction of helicoidal wire,
a braided cable made up of several steel wires
which, run by a system of pulleys,
made it possible to cut the marble blocks horizontally.
Subsequently, dynamite was introduced
in holes drilled at the back of the blocks,
which, by means of controlled explosions,
made the vertical break
necessary for the separation of the blocks.
Thanks to these techniques,
the arduous manual work of the extractive phase
could finally be replaced by a mechanised procedure,
which has since been improved with the introduction
of new techniques such as the diamond wire.
Modern quarries have made
the entire extraction process more dynamic,
with the opening of quarries of enormous proportions,
running hundreds of metres deep into the earth.
Another important turning point
was in the 1960s when, let's say,
the industrialisation of the extraction processes
took place in the quarries.
A young engineer
called Carlos Gutiérrez came to Macael in 1963
and drew up a project for the electrification of the quarries,
which later made it possible to install compressed air,
and so the processes,
instead of being carried out by hand as in the past,
made the work of the quarrymen much easier.
In some of the quarry landscapes,
we can observe the continuity of exploitation
over different periods,
displaying the technical characteristics
of the extractive processes in different historical times.
This is the case of the Estremoz Anticline,
which has been intensively exploited
since Roman times up until the present day.
We are here in the quarry of Lagoa,
which is the main site in the whole of the Estremoz Anticline
where we still have evidence of a Roman quarry.
It is evident, if we look at the landscape,
that the whole territory is very much transformed
by modern and contemporary exploitation,
especially because the marble territory
is obviously a strategic resource of the greatest importance
still today, throughout history
and in the contemporary age.
Good examples of quarries that were used in Antiquity
and were reopened in later times
can be found in L'Ènova, in Valencia.
The physical and aesthetic qualities
of the Buixcarró limestone
led to the reactivation of the exploitation
from the mid-13th century onwards,
as is evidenced by its use in the plinth and jambs
of the late Romanesque doorway of Valencia Cathedral.
An example of continuity can also be found in the Tortosa area.
Here, the limestone known as Tortosa jasper or brocatello
has been exploited since Roman times.
It is a stone with warm, bright stones,
in an extraordinary range of colours
from yellows to purples,
through an infinite nuance of pink and reddish hues.
The beauty of this material led to its distribution
beyond Hispania as early as the Roman Era
and its constant presence in European commercial circuits
is well-attested from the 16th century onwards.
Its name, broccatello,
was given by the modern stonemasons
because of the stone’s resemblance to brocade fabrics.
Here we are in one of the most important places
to learn about the historical past
of the Tortosa broccatello or Tortosa jasper:
the quarry known as “dels Valencians”.
It is an exploitation that probably began in the Modern Era,
although its period of maximum splendour
was after the Second World War.
The destruction of the Abbey of Montecassino
led the United States Government to reopen
the quarry for the large-scale exploitation of the stone
for the reconstruction of the Abbey
destroyed during the Second World War,
and in which this material, Tortosa broccatello,
had already been used.
The stones, either in blocks or in preforms,
were transported to the workshops
or building sites where they were to be used.
There, they acquired their final finish in the form
of architectural elements, sculptures,
cladding slabs or furniture.
The transport of these volumes of stone is extremely complex,
in such a way that land, river or sea routes are essential
to their removal from the quarry and their distribution.
From very ancient times until well into the 20th century,
transport did not undergo substantial change,
as is illustrated by the extraordinary documentary film
made by the Istituto Luce.
This film documents the extraction
and transport of the obelisk
of Carrara marble
gifted to Mussolini that was to be placed,
in a great propagandistic gesture, in the Foro Italico of Rome.
The huge block was moved from the quarries,
first overland by ox-drawn carts and then by sea,
to the mouth of the Tiber River in Ostia.
From there, it was taken upstream to its destination in Rome.
This complex process took almost four years.
For millennia, animal traction
was the main means of transport over land,
in a large territory such as the Iberian Peninsula
where, for most of the year, there are
no river courses able to float large cargo ships.
The blocks, tied together with simple ropes,
must sometimes have been transported hundreds of kilometres
using only wooden carts pulled by animals,
mainly oxen, as is documented in the old photographs.
From the mid-19th century, the railways
and, later on, road transport,
became the main means of distribution of the marmora.
Among the earliest examples
is the Madrid-Zaragoza-Alicante railway line, opened in 1858,
which promoted the diffusion and sale throughout Spain
of the ornamental stones known as Novelda stone,
from the Medio Vinalopó area.
An important historical event in Macael
was the inauguration of the railway from Guadix to Águilas.
It was built by a British company
that worked the iron mines of Serón,
but the stop between Olula and Fines was used
to get marble into the different commercial circuits,
and that was a very important turning point
in the development of the marble industry of Macael.
However, the transport and trade of marble over long distances
cannot be understood without the maritime cargo ships.
The sea has been the main means
of transport since Antiquity,
as is explained by the Roman writer Pliny.
"Mountains were made by Nature for herself.
We quarry these mountains and haul them away.
Ships are built specially for marble.
And so, over the waves of the sea, Nature's wildest element,
mountain ranges, are transported to and fro".
Exotic materials
from very distant origins were transported across the sea,
as is the case of the granite columns
from the Troad, in Turkey,
which are currently displayed
along the Tarragona archaeological promenade.
We are looking at one of the jewels
of this beautiful archaeological promenade
along the Roman-republican city walls of Tarragona:
these columns.
They don't look like an exceptional thing, but they are. Why?
Because they came from the other side of the Mediterranean,
from the area of the Dardanelles, from the area of Troy,
the mythical Troy of the Trojan War,
from the port of Alexandria in the Troad.
Imagine crossing the entire Mediterranean
to deliver these columns,
made out of granite of exceptional quality.
This shows us how the commercial routes of Rome
were capable of crossing the mare nostrum,
that they really made their own, not only for war,
but also for peace and for good buildings.
The high demand for marble in Roman times
transformed the Mediterranean Sea into a large commercial space,
which was transited by ships laden with marmora,
the so-called naves lapidariae.
The main routes departed from the main quarries of the Empire,
located in Italy, Greece, Egypt, Turkey and Tunisia.
Some industrial Roman ports have been preserved
in the Iberian Peninsula, as is the case of the infrastructure located
near the quarries of El Mèdol.
The stone blocks from El Mèdol
were finished at the entrance to the quarries
and sent to the city, located about 8 km away,
connected by the Via Augusta.
However, the relatively recent discovery
of a jetty cut into the cliff,
just 1 km from the quarry,
has allowed us to suggest a new hypothesis
about maritime transport,
which was, of course, faster and cheaper.
The study of the currents and winds also supports this hypothesis.
The extractive work carried out over centuries
in some regions of the Iberian Peninsula
has created unique landscapes
marked by enormous artificial mountains
formed by tons of discarded material.
These mounds of quarry refuse
are clear evidence of the productive orientation
of these regions in which the exploitation of stone
coexists alongside other sources of economic wealth.
For instance, in the Portuguese Alentejo,
the landscape of the magnificent marble of Borba,
Estremoz and Vila Viçosa -marketed throughout the world-
has, for decades, been shared with vineyards and wineries
producing high quality wines,
the characteristics of which depend, to a large extent,
on the geological substrate on which the vines are grown.
In order to mitigate the environmental impact
caused by the extraction of marmora,
restoration projects have recently been developed.
This is the case in Macael,
a quarry area extending over 6000 hectares,
in which there are more than a hundred quarries
as the result of a system of communal exploitation
in which the families of stonemasons
have been working this geological resource for centuries.
The intensification of quarrying
in the last decades of the 20th century
considerably accentuated the environmental and visual impact,
the consequences of which are now being addressed
through the revegetation of abandoned refuse dumps and quarries
using hydroseeding
and planting of native and endemic flora
of the Sierra de Filabres.
The stone landscapes are marked by a permanent impression,
that provides a glimpse into the effort
and complexity involved in the extraction work.
This is the but the beginning of an artistic and artisanal process,
transforming the hardness of these rough stones
into pieces full of beauty and shine,
which will merit the admiration of many generations over time.