Andersite column
Egyptian
Likely 1st/2nd century CE
Eastern empire
This segment or barrel of column is carved from Andesite, a remarkably hard material which has been used from the earliest days of Egyptian stone work. An igneous rock from the eastern dessert it conjures memories of the colossal granodiorite columns imported to Rome that still adorn the Pantheon. Such columns where carved into shape on site and then shipped to the power centres of the Empire. This column has a form of attaching a capital or secondary barrel that can first be seen in Greek architecture of the 5th century BCE. It has one deep central square hole and a secondary one closer toward the parameter, this would allow a bronze insert like a double staple to be inserted that would add structural integrity and make it nearly impossible to rotate.
A Roman Breccia Pavonazza di Ezine “Palatine marble” column segment.
One can see the same stone used in the remains of the floor of the Domus Severiana. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Anatolian quarries that supplied this marble were left abandoned for millennia. When rediscovered in recent times, the quarry was so depleted objects of such scale could never to be produced again.