The most popular types of marble stone employed in sculpture are pentelic parian and carrara marble.
White pentelic marble.
It is white with a golden tinge.
Marble is commonly used for sculpture and as a building material.
Pentelic marble from the quarries at penteli north of athens is a fine grained calcitic marble.
It is fine grained with sporadic calcitic fossil clasts.
The chief summit about 10 miles 16 km northeast of athens athína is kokkinarás 3 632 feet 1 107 m which yields white pentelic marble on its north slope.
Other articles where pentelic marble is discussed.
During classical antiquity the most famous type was the close grained golden toned pentelic variety quarried at mount pentelicon in attica.
The main rival of the parian marble in antiquity was the pentelic marble which is also flawless white albeit with a uniform faint yellow tint that makes it shine with a golden hue under sunlight.
Although famous for its pure white surface this look was actually avoided by greek sculptors.
Thus many great monuments found scattered in various parts of greece made of pentelic marble.
In ancient times the pentelic marble was an important export product of athens.
This construction was built almost entirely with pentelic marble and shows 8 columns at its two shorter sides and 17 columns at its longer ones containing a statue of athena in its central area.
Pentelic marble was used for most of the major monuments of classical athens especially from the 5th century bc onwards and was the first white marble to be used in significant quantities at rome in the 2nd century bc.
The marble industry also thrived on mt ymittos where quarries produced a grey or bluish grey stone much beloved by the romans.
Pentelic marble is white with a uniform faint yellow tint which makes it shine with a golden hue under sunlight.
The pentelic marble was also widely used in temple and statue construction.
In classical times the peak had 25 quarries on the south slope at elevations between 2 500 and 3 300 feet 760 and 1000 m.
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals most commonly calcite or dolomite marble is typically not foliated although there are exceptions in geology the term marble refers to metamorphosed limestone but its use in stonemasonry more broadly encompasses unmetamorphosed limestone.
These provided excellent marble for most of the buildings and sculptures of athens in the 5th.
Green marble also came from skyros and tinos while thasos provided a fine white marble that could rival pentelic.
A cave on ymittos above vari contains a carved relief of a quarryman.
A white marble quarried on mount pentelicus near athens.
Pentelic marble is calcitic in composition with quartz as an accessory mineral.
Discover more about paros.