Within the project of distinguishing marble monuments
of Noricum and Pannonia, 32 marble monument
samples were taken from the Museum of Slavonia, a Dalj
marble stella was taken from the Town museum of Sremski
Karlovci, and several marble monument samples were taken
from the Archaelogical museum of Zagreb originating
from Osijek and its surrounding area. The paper analyses
the results of monument material provenance.
Mursa is one of those Pannonian towns that do not
possess a stone deposit in their immediate neighbourhood
and especially not of high quality as white marble. In stone
supply, the town depended on the river as an only rational
transport way for heavy loads and the Drava was the ideal
river for this purpose because it flows from the area that
was abundant with white marble. One of the largest ancient
white marble quarries, Gummern near Villach in Austria,
was opened on its very bank. Nowadays it has been clearly
determined due to various analyses that since the beginning
of the 1st century until Traian times, the only quarry of
supraregional significance was just Gummern. Only after
establishing the Traian colony of Poetovio in the early 2nd
century, Gummern was adjoined by the smaller quarries of
Pohorje in the inter-provincial trade which until then were
used for the Poetovio needs only. The position of Mursa
facilitated a supply from another, southeast route directly
from the Mediterranean Sea upstream the Danube to the
Drava. Still, it was possible only after Traian had opened
the Iron gate of the Đerdap. The supply of high-grade neogenic
solid limestone, of which the most stone monuments
in Mursa were built, went most probably from Aquincum
the Danube downstream.
Our analyses have confirmed that the most of the marble
and marble products arrived to Mursa by the Drava via
Poetovio from Gummern or Pohorje. The Mediterranean
marble in Mursa, unlike Sirmium, appears only by exception.
Marble products came mainly to Mursa as already
finished or semi-manufactured product and only in exceptional
cases we can talk of products of local origin. The monuments
that are made of limestone, confirm that such production
existed taking imported marble shapes as a model.
The processes bound to production and trade of stone
monuments in Pannonia are confirmed to have not been
comprehensible concerning marble monuments without
considering stone-carving workshops of Noricum but for
Mursa, besides those active in Poetovio, and those bound
to Virunum
