Porphyry column of Constantine
Type:
Columns
Date:
Fourth century
Location or Findspot (Modern-Day Country):
Turkey
Medium:
Porphyry
Dimensions:
Originally around 40 m tall
Description:
Constantinople (founded 324) was embellished in the fourth century with porphyry columns and sculpture brought from outside the city. Constantine (r. 306–37) built a circular forum with a porphyry column at its center. The column was composed of drums (six of seven survive) on a tall pedestal (the stone is reinforced by iron rings). It still stands, but its crowning statue of Constantine wearing a diadem with rays like the sun god—almost certainly a reused ancient statue of Apollo—toppled in the early twelfth century.
Porphyry is a very hard reddish-purple stone that contains feldspar crystals in the form of white spots. It was quarried only at Mons Porphyritis (Porphyry Mountain) in Egypt's Eastern Desert, between the Nile River and the Red Sea. Its extraction and dispersal was a monopoly controlled by the Roman emperors, and vast quantities of porphyry were shipped to Rome and around the Mediterranean between the first and fourth centuries CE. The quarries were closed by the fifth century, and all later porphyry sculpture and architectural components—columns, revetment slabs, sculpture—had to be acquired from older pieces, either culled from warehoused stockpiles or stripped from their original context as spolia. Because of its rarity, durability, and imperial associations, porphyry and its purplish color was highly prized throughout the Middle Ages.
Porphyry is a very hard reddish-purple stone that contains feldspar crystals in the form of white spots. It was quarried only at Mons Porphyritis (Porphyry Mountain) in Egypt's Eastern Desert, between the Nile River and the Red Sea. Its extraction and dispersal was a monopoly controlled by the Roman emperors, and vast quantities of porphyry were shipped to Rome and around the Mediterranean between the first and fourth centuries CE. The quarries were closed by the fifth century, and all later porphyry sculpture and architectural components—columns, revetment slabs, sculpture—had to be acquired from older pieces, either culled from warehoused stockpiles or stripped from their original context as spolia. Because of its rarity, durability, and imperial associations, porphyry and its purplish color was highly prized throughout the Middle Ages.
Relevant Textbook Chapter(s):
2
Image Credits:
Wikimedia Commons
