Marble in Cilicia in Antiquity as Evidence of Import of Building Material and Architectural Interaction

Cilicia is a region lacking marble quarries, so for many centuries its tradition in architecture was strongly connectedwith the local stones, especially limestone, frequently of bad quality and difficult to be worked. This situation changedtotally in the Imperial age, when imported marble arrived widely in the region. The new stone was massivelyemployed in magnificent programs of architectural renewal and certainly it caused a real revolution from manypoints of view. The introduction of this building–stone corresponds to the general trend of ‘marble–style’ occurredin all the provinces of the Roman Empire and specifically in the Anatolian provinces, but this new availability implieda deep impact and a radical cultural interaction. The first consequence was the tendency of adopting an architecturalcommon language. But it wasn’t a ‘passive reception’, since a continuous evolution of local architecture occurred inCilicia, where local stones continuied to be used. The result is the frequent occurrence of the combined use of marblesand limestone in the same monuments. Moreovoer, as the large part of marble architectural elements arrived in apartially–worked level, the workmanships were obliged to complete and to follow these models, but they were alsoable to propose new trends in architectural decoration.