Porphyry

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by Caroline Stone

Porphyry, the fine-grained purple stone flecked with white crystals was closely associated with royalty because of its colour during the Roman period. True porphyry is found at only one place in the world, the mountain behind Hurghada on the Red Sea, known to the Romans as Mons Porphyrites and today called Jabal Abu Dukhan – the Father of Smoke. It was discovered there by a Roman legionary in 18 A.D.

These mountains are harsh in the extreme and in Roman times the porphyry was quarried by those condemned to the mines – damnati ad metallam – often Christian slaves. From Mons Porphyrites an extraordinarily difficult trail, described by Ptolemy and Strabo, runs to Qena on the Nile, whence the precious stone was shipped all over the Mediterranean.

Porphyry is found in the Pantheon at Rome, in the Temple of Heliopolis at Baalbek in Lebanon, in Hagia Sofia in Istanbul, re-used by Charlemagne in his cathedral at Aachen, in the churches of Kiev . . .

In Byzantine times, porphyry was even more significant than it had been to the Romans. The room where members of the royal family were born was paneled with it – hence the epithet porphyrogenitus – "born in the purple". Anna Comnena, an 11th century porphyrogenita describes it as follows:

"The room is in the form of a perfect square from floor to ceiling, with the later ending in a pyramid. The stone used was of a purple colour throughout, with white spots like sand sprinkled over it."