Roman Marble "Red Porphyry" Sterling Silver Pendant

In this 925 silver pendant is set a fragment of an ancient and now unobtainable Roman marble .... the red porphyry! This dark red marble, punctuated with white or pink inclusions, had its quarries in Egypt, and was already used in the Ptolemaic era. In Rome, with Trajan, the extraction and use of porphyry became usual. It was used in sculpture, for statues, sarcophagi, floor inlays, so much that Diocletian made of it the exclusive ornament of his palaces. Imperial Red Porphyry was first discovered in Egypt in the year 18 CE by the Roman legionnaire, Caius Cominius Leugas. Imperial Red Porphyry, is rare, valuable and has historic significance. The stone came from the quarry of Mons Porpyritis (Egypt), the only source of Imperial Red Porphyry in the world. Stones were carried by oxcart along what was known as The Porphyry Road to the Nile River and then shipped to Rome. Romans valued the stone for carvings. They even used it in the statues and inlaid panels of the Pantheon.Imperial Red Porphyry was a mark of great wealth and power and the person who had the resources to import Imperial Porphyry and the means to build with it was the Emperor.From the end of the III century precious marbles, including red porphyry, began to run out and costs increased enormously (until the marbles ran out in the quarries)