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Basanites, Basalt

Aurum, Gold Page of 453 Basanites, Basalt Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
BASALTES.                                      123
BASALTES: Balanites: Basalt.
An igneous rock, extremely fine-grained, of a deep black, but showing a slight tinge of green when viewed at a certain angle. The Romans got it from Egypt, and its name (Coptic) implied that it had both the appearance and the hardness of iron (xxxvi. 11). Indeed sculptures in Basalt have greatly the appearance of cast-iron figures. The surface, however highly polished, ex­hibits a granular texture, serving to distinguish it from the valuable antique black marble, the " Nero antico."
The largest work in Basalt known to the Romans was the recumbent Nile, with his sixteen infants sporting about him— alluding to the number of cubits attained by his annual rise. This had been dedicated in the Temple of Peace by Vespasian, and is now in the Capitoline Museum. It is apparently a work of the age of the Ptolemies, and brought from Alexandria by the Emperor named as the dedicator. Pliny mentions a report that there existed at Thebes a similar statue, but of Serapis. The Capitoline Museum also possesses some wonderful Centaurs and Stags in Basalt, ascribed to the reign of Hadrian. His love for Egyptian art had revived the use of this stone, in which some extraordinary monuments of the earliest times were executed, such as the sarcophagus in the British Museum commonly known as the Tomb of Alexander.
The more compact pieces of this extremely hard material were used for scarabs and intagli by the 'later Egyptians. It is not unusual to find Gnostic amulets, belonging to the Alexandrian sects, engraved in Basalt. Engravers, however, of a good period, have never made use of so coarse a material. The only black stone ever presenting intagli of artistic value is the Black Jasper, and even that was but in small request with the Romans.
Aurum, Gold Page of 453 Basanites, Basalt
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