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This chapter discusses the geology and topography of marble outcrops and ore deposits which very much dictates the technology employed and the scale of extractive operations. These restrictions significantly influence the organizational structures and, together with the geographical location, determine the organizational challenges faced by the heads of these extractive operations. Moreover, the geology and topography of a mining or quarrying district also determine the spatial arrangement of operative (work procedures) and directive processes (planning and controlling of assets and goals, direction of human resources etc.). This is exemplified by the topographical layout of building structures, transport facilities, and extractive locations, or rather: their archaeological remains, within imperial districts such as the quarries in the Eastern Egyptian Desert or in mining areas such as Dolaucothi or Roflia Montan∏.

In line with the organizational principle central to Roman administration, mining or quarrying operations or particular tasks were handed over to private ‘entrepreneurs’ or corporations (conductores, societates). This chapter explores varying arrangements (locatio‐conductio) in which private individuals and companies either contracted particular working tasks from the authorities, leased mines, or collected vectigalia from mines in one or more provinces. These arrangements are in part reflected in numerous quarry labels on blocks and columns eg. at Dokimeion or Simitthus, and (to a lesser degree) on marked ingots. Significant insights into a particular disposition of private ‘partners’ in a public context are provided by the second Vipasca tablet (LMD): if the interpretation of the difficult text is correct, the occupants of mining plots may not have been mere lessees but actual, owners'.

This chapter argues that the production of funerary sculpture should be regarded as one of the most important stone-related industries in medieval England. For the most part, the production of sculpted monuments appears to have been undertaken at quarries, although in some parts of England before the 14th century travelling sculptors may have been active. In the 15th century a vigorous industry in the production of alabaster monuments was based at Chellaston, near Derby. The evidence suggests that only the engraving of brasses was based in towns, perhaps because of the engravers' dependence on imported latten.

Starting from D. M. Lewis’ famous observation that ‘the Athenian state never retained, worked, or leased anything called ge demosia (public land), the author carries out a full-scale survey of the epigraphical and literary evidence for non-sacred non-private realty, including quarries, and premises other than sacred buildings. Such types of properties did exist and were often communal, in the sense of being readily accessible to members of the communities. Looking back to chapter 3, it becomes clear that it was properties of this type that were alienated in the case of the Rationes Centesimarum. The central administration was not directly involved in the administration of such properties, presumably because it had handed this jurisdiction over to local associations, mainly, but not exclusively, the demes.

Communities in the desert, whether ports or military outposts, were almost wholly reliant on the Nile Valley for their supplies. This chapter considers how the ports of the Red Sea, quarry installations, military outposts, and hydreumata were supplied, in the light of the ever-increasing body of evidence provided by ostraca. It also studies the transport of decorative stone, one of the most impressive technological feats of the ancient world. An impressive infrastructure of desert routes and cisterns was developed to support those engaged in the protection of routes and their supply. Requisitioned animals from the Nile Valley provided the necessary labour. Finally, the transport of military supply is considered, both requisition of supplies and their transport.

In the fall of 1889, William H. Holmes of the Bureau of Ethnology (BAE) began excavations at the Piney Branch quartzite quarry in Washington, DC. This site of recent age was littered with manufacturing failures that strongly resembled supposedly ancient paleoliths: this suggested artifact form had no inherent chronological meaning. Without geological evidence to confirm its antiquity, the American Paleolithic was adrift in time. Proponents disagreed, insisting the similarity between paleoliths and Piney Branch quarry debris was purely coincidental. Holmes set out to prove otherwise on a scorched-earth march through the sites of the American Paleolithic. Although the dispute resolved itself as a geological issue, geology provided little guidance. It was uncertain whether the paleoliths were in situ and whether the artifact-enclosing formations were Pleistocene in age, which in turn were entangled in the ongoing debate over the number of glacial periods. Debate exploded with the publication of Wright's Man and the glacial period in 1892, and became a wide-ranging battle over theory, method and evidence, the role of amateurs in science, and the perceived heavy-handedness of government scientists, all complicated by institutional rivalries and the economic Panic of 1893. By mid-decade the talk was fiery and positions had hardened beyond compromise.

This chapter recounts the author's participation in the Egyptian excavation site in Tura. The name Tura is notorious in all of Egypt. A few kilometers south of Cairo lies the state prison where political opponents of the regime were tortured and abused, often enough to death. Its inmates were required to labor in the limestone quarries that supplied the nearby cement plant. In the winter of 1977, the cement plant wanted to expand. The new building site extended into the ancient stone quarries. Before the extension could proceed, however, the new site had to be explored for possible archaeological remains and excavations undertaken wherever something looked promising.

Most discussions of Cahokian “contact” and “influence” in the Lower Mississippi Valley have focused on a “horizon” around 1200 AD and sites east of the Mississippi River; another site was documented recently in northeastern Louisiana. Here, we present additional westerly evidence from sites in eastern and southeastern Arkansas that have produced: Missouri Flint Clay figurines; flakes resembling Burlington and Crescent Quarry cherts; hoes, polished “hoe chips,” and other items made of Mill Creek chert; plus a few Cahokia-style chunkey stones and a Cahokia arrow point, but as yet no Cahokian ceramics. These items tend to cluster at and near three mound sites, in contexts around 1200 AD, with hints of a southward time trend. Unlike the few “elite” or sacred figurines found in mounds, most other items are utilitarian and may have been recirculated (rather than chiefly-redistributed) via “trade fairs” at mound centers, to commoners from the hinterlands.

This chapter focuses on two disputes that arose in 1930 and 1957 respectively, events that drew attention to the protection of the archaeological remains of the best-preserved section of Hadrian's Wall. The first of these public arguments was over the threat posed by quarrying. Large-scale extraction had commenced during the nineteenth century at several sites along the central section of the Wall and in some areas this substantially destroyed the fabric of the Wall. In 1930 it was proposed that stone should be extracted on a large scale at Shield on the Wall, six kilometres to the west of Housesteads. These works, if permitted, would have created a very serious impact on the physical fabric and setting of the best-preserved and most atmospheric part of the Wall, and the growing public appreciation of the importance of these remains gave rise to a strong resistance to the scheme. The chapter assesses the popularity of the Wall and the response of the establishment to the threat of quarrying, which swiftly led to a strengthening of the ancient monument legislation in order to protect the monument. It also explores the subsequent designation, management, consolidation, and display of this increasingly famous section of the Wall, including an assessment of the current significance of this iconic landscape.

Quarries are a common feature of the Maya landscape. This chapter explores limestone quarrying and household organization at the Maya farming community of Chan. At Chan, soft limestone, primarily used as fill material, was informally accessed by residents from quarry areas nearby their homes. Hard tabular limestone, largely used as building facing material, was differentially accessed by specialized quarrying households.

The most convenient routes that passed by or led to the purest and most dependable water sources, optimal hunting grounds, most desirable places to live, and best sources of usable stone were discovered by early travelers and residents in the Eastern Desert. The Wadi Hammamat inscriptions bear witness to pre-Ptolemaic maritime expeditions. Examples of possible pre-Ptolemaic desert roads are addressed. Donkeys were the primary pack animals used before the Ptolemaic period. As they undoubtedly did for road building, quarrying, and mining activities in the Eastern Desert, the Ptolemies and Romans most likely took Pharaonic practices as their model for water-resource acquisition and management as well. The Ptolemaic approach to dealing with roads, forts, and patrols may have differed from the Roman military's handling of affairs, certainly in the size and scope of their desert operations.

This chapter explores the land routes in the Eastern Desert from about 30 B.C.E. until the sixth century C.E. The Romans enhanced the previously existing road networks by refurbishing, enlarging, and extending older Ptolemaic routes and renovating stops and stations along them. The maps, itineraries, and lists of road stations, inns, towns, military garrisons, and cities throughout the empire were likely compiled by individuals of varying abilities on official or unofficial missions over long periods of time. Roman settlements in the Eastern Desert were connected with the road system and cannot be understood apart from it. The elaborate road system with its praesidia and hydreumata, mines, quarries, and other settlements of uncertain function, together with the Red Sea ports, dramatically shows the importance attached to the Eastern Desert and Red Sea coast by the Roman imperial and provincial governments, the military, civilian entrepreneurs, and others.

This chapter uses the mortuary data of the Mississippian period of the American Bottom as evidence in support of the heterarchical polyistic locale-centric account, in general, and of the World Renewal Cult Heterarchy model, in particular. It is noted that under a hierarchical monistic modular polity system based on proprietary corporate clans, a unitary CBL system should exist, with a strong emphasis on primary burial and with variation in artifact and burial facilities correlated with the presence or absence of ranked clans and specialization. It is also clear that the nature of the clan-cult relation in a polyistic-type social system is a function of the relative degree of polluting that everyday settlement and subsistence practices are perceived to be generating. An analysis is initiated by concentrating on four American Bottom mortuary sites that have been excavated and/or analyzed using modern archaeological standards: the East St. Louis Stone Quarry site, the Kane Mounds site, the Wilson Mound, and Mound 72. The Wilson Mound is interpreted by George Milner as an elite cemetery, although a distinctly “lesser elite” cemetery.

This chapter examines a host of individual allegations and incidences of political corruption in postwar Lebanon using a qualitative approach. As part of this qualitative assessment, the chapter considers pertinent data in order to disentangle and assess the validity of specific allegations involving institutions that were found to be particularly prone to the use of public office for private benefit. It first discusses corruption, and specifically fraudulent health care, involving the Ministry of Health, before turning to the Middle East Airlines's involvement in the Airbus scandal. It then analyzes other cases of corruption in Lebanon, including shady oil and gas deals; the anomalous contract awarded to a British joint-venture firm to clear the port of Beirut of sunken vessels, explosives, and debris; and the government's corrupt relations with private quarries. It also highlights corruption in reconstruction work and in the large-scale program meant to encourage and facilitate the return of hundreds of thousands of individuals and families displaced by combat.

This chapter explains that from the site of Mons Claudianus, which lies 50 kilometers south of Gebel Dokhan, the Romans hewed the enormous columns of speckled, white granite which were to grace some of the most splendid buildings of Roman antiquity, among them Trajan's Forum and the Pantheon itself. There are approximately 130 quarries in the hills surrounding Mons Claudianus, many of which contain examples of the variety of objects the Romans fashioned from the fine stone but discarded because of cracks or other defects. Recent discoveries indicate that at some point during its occupation, as many as 920 people lived at Mons Claudianus. Scholars do not know exactly when or why quarrying ceased there. The archaeological research at Mons Claudianus itself is becoming increasingly difficult because the site is threatened by modern quarrying, which every year destroys valuable inscriptions in the surrounding area.

This book is an ethnography of stone quarry workers located beyond the urban fringe of south Delhi. Based on fieldwork conducted during the mid-1980s and following on trends continuing into the present, this account of the stone quarry workers' lives and conditions is based on stories about them and the stories they tell. This book hopes to describe the experience of survival of a part of India's working class. In the present narrative, the workers have ordinary points to lose and win everyday, including wages earned and rights violated. This book looks at three facets of the workers' collective existence: stones, symbols, and sociation. The analysis focuses on migrant workers belonging to the three scheduled castes — the Ballais, the Khatiks, and the Jatavs.

‘Quarry worker’ is a blanket term used to describe different workers who were employed in various capacities in stone quarrying. This chapter investigates the field-independent context of mineral mining in India, along with census construction of the field setting and workers' background, social composition, patterns of migration, earnings, work operations, and indebtedness. The stone quarry workers belong to the other side of what is known as the organized sector of Indian society and economy. Whether it is the physical layout of an industrial unit or a residential building, or roads and bridges, all are ultimately made possible by the mining or quarrying of gravel, sand, silica stone, marble, etc. Most of the quarry workers who were interviewed for this book from 1984 to 1987 came from the neighbouring states of Delhi. These quarry workers primarily belonged to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes communities.