Travailler pour l'empereur

Abstract

The recent excavations at Samut have confirmed the evidence of Agatharchides on the use of forced labour in the Ptolemaic gold-mines. On the other hand, there is almost no evidence for the presence of prisoners in the imperial quarries at Mons Claudianus and Mons Porphyrites, except the pathetic lines from Aelius Aristides about the porphyry-quarries. The ostraca from Mons Claudianus show that the work-force consisted of two large groups, the pagani (i.e. ‘natives’), who were free, Egyptian craftsmen, and the familia, who took care of logistics and were less qualified. It is not impossible that prisoners, if there were any, were included in the familia. The workers lived, without mixing, in rooms called kellai (from Latin cella). In order to improve the psychological comfort of the workers the Roman authorities had brought their families closer to the quarries by installing them in Kaine, a new town from which the roads to the desert metalla departed.

Keywords

• Imperial quarry
• Eastern Desert
• Egypt
• alabaster
• porphyry
• grano-diorite