Petrography and mineralogy of the white marble and black stone of Göktepe (Muğla, Turkey) used in antiquity: New data for provenance determination

Abstract

The discovery near Göktepe (Muğla province, Western Turkey) of an ancient quarrying site of white marbles and black stones has recently been reported by some authors. Assigning the provenance of stone from ancient artifacts to Göktepe is currently possible mainly thanks to chemical, EPR and MGS data. Petrographic description, which many researchers use to characterize ancient marbles, is still incomplete. Several thin sections of both types of stone were thus examined in this study, and also used for cathodoluminescence analysis. As the rock is more than 99% calcite, trace minerals could only be detected in some samples by XRD analysis of insoluble residues after acetic acid attack. Data on strontium and manganese contents and carbon and oxygen isotopes were also recorded, for better understanding of some petrographic features. A new method of grain size characterization was tentatively introduced to improve the description of grain size variability in the white marble. Microstructure and grain size measurements on thin sections of this marble identify two petrographic varieties: the first is extremely fine with signs of dynamic recrystallization, and the second exhibits texture and MGS similar to those of Carrara marble. Statuary samples of white marble from Villa Adriana (Tivoli, Rome), preliminarily assigned in a previous study partly to Carrara and partly to Göktepe quarry, are reconsidered here. A certain degree of variability was found in the structures and textures in the thin sections of the Göktepe black stone. It may have undergone transformations at an advanced stage of diagenesis. One important source of this variability seems to be a fluid alteration event, revealed by both isotopic and chemical data and trace mineral assemblages.

A New Database of the Quantitative Cathodoluminescence of the Main Quarry Marbles Used in Antiquity

“…Due to its importance in sculpture, the recently discovered Göktepe marble has received much attention from different scholars. Thus, it has been the subject of various publications aiming to discriminate it from other fine-grained marbles [18,20,29,[31][32][33]. The scarce analyzed samples in this contribution have been plotted separately into two subgroups in the CL diagram (Figure 7b), according to who supplied each set of samples.…”

“…Since the pioneering work by Renfrew and Peacey [9], a significant number of research papers have focused on the practical use of CL in carbonate as a complementary tool for the provenance study of ancient marbles [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Most of them use representative CL-images of quarry marbles to identify archaeological pieces as a complementary technique to the usual C and O stable isotopes.…”

Black limestone used in antiquity: recognizing the limestone of Teos

“…Carbon and oxygen isotope distribution of the black limestones quarried in antiquity in the Mediterranean area. The quarry sites are those of Djebel Oust, Djebel Aziz and Thala in Tunisia; of Chios in Greece (after Brilli et al ); of Göktepe in Turkey (after Brilli et al ); and of Teos (present study). Confidence ellipses are drawn at 90% probability.…”

NMR as a new tool for cultural heritage application: The provenance of ancient white marbles

“…; Brilli et al . ). Diagenetic transformations and also fluids circulating during metamorphism could have also caused the introduction of several trace elements into the calcite lattice.…”