Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T21:41:57.546Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Mineral Products of Melos in Antiquity and their Identification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Jill Pittinger
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

According to literary sources, the various products of vulcanicity were in great demand for both manufacturing and medicinal purposes in the ancient world, as they are today. These include pumice, fuller's earth (a form of calcium montmorillonite), sulphur, and the alumen of the Romans, which was probably aluminium sulphate, or a related substance. The island of Melos, in the Cyclades, was particularly noted in Antiquity for its mineral products, and in this brief article an attempt is made to summarize the references to these products by the various Greek and Roman authors, and to identify them and the people concerned with their mining and extraction in Antiquity, on the basis of recent geological and archaeological observations made by the author on the island.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 70 , November 1975 , pp. 191 - 197
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acknowledgement. I should like to thank Dr. H. W. Catling for his most useful advice during the preparation of this paper.

1 Sonder, A.: ‘Zur Geologie und Petrographie der Insel gruppe von Milos.’ Zeitschrift für Vulkanologie viii (1925) 4.Google Scholar

2 Liatsikas, N.: Geologia kai Koitasmata Krisimon Orukton tis Nisou Milou, Institute of Subsurface Research, Paper xx, Athens (1955).Google Scholar

3 Philippson, A.: Die griechische Landschaften iv (1959).Google Scholar

4 Ehrenberg, K.: Die Inselgruppe von Milos (1899).

5 Wetzenstein, K.: Die Bentonitlagerstatten im Ostteil der Insel Milos/Griechenland und ihr Mineralogische Zusammensetzung (1969).

6 Dioscurides v. 114, 171–9.

7 Galen, De Simpl. Med. (ix ed. Kuhn xii 238–44).

8 Pliny, , NH. xxxiii 65, 88, 94, 98Google Scholar; xxxiv 106, 116; xxxv 183–8; xxxvi 154–6.

9 Ibid. xxxv 183.

10 Ibid. xxxv 188.

11 Farnsworth, M., ‘Ancient Pigments’, Journal of Chemical Education xxviii (1951) 72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Caley, E. R., and Richards, J. F. C, Theophrastus on Stones (1956).

13 Theophrastus, , de Lapidibus ix 62.Google Scholar

14 Vitruvius, , de Architectura vii 7. 3.Google Scholar

15 Atkinson, T. D., et al., ‘Excavations at Phylakopi’, JHS suppl. iv (1904) 191.Google Scholar

16 Tournefort, P. de, Relation d'un voyage du Levant (1718).

17 Aristotle, Mir. Auce. 44.

18 Davies, , Roman Mines in Europe (1936) 262–3.Google Scholar

19 Theophrastus, , de lapidibus ix 62.Google Scholar

20 Pliny, , NH. xxxv 195–6.Google Scholar

21 Dioscurides, v 175.

22 Theophrastus, , de lapidibus ii 14.Google Scholar

23 Ibid, iii 21–2.

24 Pliny, , NH. xxxv 174.Google Scholar

25 Catullus, 12; xxii 4–7.

26 Pliny, , NH. xxxv 174.Google Scholar

27 Hatzidakis, I., Istoria tis nisou Milou (1927).

28 Pliny, , NH. xxxi 61.Google Scholar

25 Hippocrates, Epidemion v.

30 Athenaeus, ii 42 f–43 a.

31 CIL iii 1420310.

32 IG xii, iii 1233.

33 IG xii, v 424.

34 IG xii, iii 1078.

35 IG xii, iii 1079.

36 CIL 488.

37 IG xii, v 172: IG xii, v 171.

38 IG xii, v 171.

39 IG xii, iii 1234.

40 AM xxxii 433 no. 289.

41 IG ix 1941.

42 IG 2520.

43 IG iii 2874.

44 CIG iv 145.

45 IG xii, iii. 1085; IG iii. 1091.

46 Epigraphical information summarized from J. Hatzfeld, Les Trafiquants italiens dans l'orient hellénique (1919).