Architectural Geology of Byzantine Churches of the Athens Region, Part 21: Meditation on Marbles | Little Metropolis Church, Athens (13th? 14th? 15th? century AD; restored in the 19th and 20th)

Now the view is rotated clockwise almost a quarter turn (90 degrees) from the previous shot. The western elevation and entrance are sunlit; the northern elevation behind the parking meters is more shaded.

The spolia-studded facade of this mini-church is worth looking at again and again, from various angles. I wish I knew where all those recycled slabs of marble came from. How many layers of quarrying history, and how many different lithologies are visible here?

Normally I'd assume that most of the marble is locally produced Pentelic or Hymettian, but the more I uncover the actual identities of rock types used in great cities, be they ancient medieval, or modern, the more I discover that normal assumptions often aren't true.

To cite just one example: in the highwater mark of Italian Romanesque architecture, Pisa's magnificent Cathedral, geologists have tracked down examples not only of Athenian Pentelic, but also of Proconnesian Marble from Turkey's Sea of Marmara as well as Parian Marble from the Greek Aegean. That despite the fact that what is arguably the planet's best sources of premium-grade marble, the Carrara and Monte Pisano districts, lie just a few miles away.

But whatever the origins of these spolia sections really are, they provide a striking contrast to the neoclassical-style building in the background. While it's undoubtedly much younger than the Little Metropolis, its design elements are drawn from a Hellenistic vocabulary that predates by centuries the Byzantine transformation of Late Roman architectural conceits and techniques.

To see the other photos and descriptions in this series, visit my Architectural Geology of Byzantine Churches of the Athens Region album.

Taken in: Greece / Attica / Athens / Plaka (show map)

Taken on: February 23, 1978

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Camera: MAKER NAME 96660, ISO 50 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	MAKER NAME 96660
ISO:	50
Flash:	Auto, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Metering Mode:	Average
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
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