Roman quarries in the northeast of Hispania (modern Catalonia)

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a PhD research1, which was part of a broader research project on artistic, epigraphic and other Roman remains made of stone, that focused on the material itself and, above all, its origin. The foremost purpose was a global approach to the stone industries, both from the extraction point (quarries) and from the final use (stone objects, buildings, etc.), to get an overall picture of the whole process and its organization. In this sense, local stone proved an appropriate study case since both their quarries and the resulting objects/buildings are usually located nearby. A comprehensive bibliographic survey was undertaken as previous step to delimiting the study areas (the territories around Tarraco, Dertosa, Barcino, Aeso, Emporiae, Gerunda and other scattered areas) and to the field survey, which enabled to record as much data as possible from the sites. As a result a comprehensive collection of data has been compiled (tool marks, volume of stone extracted, contextualization on the ancient landscape, petrographic characterization of each stone, and examples of monuments/ objects/buildings where it was used). The analysis of all this data led to reconsider the chronology of most of the quarries and to propose new dates on the basis of more reliable data as well as to understand how quarrying was undertaken and developed after the arrival of the Romans in this territory.