Roman quarries

A quarry is where a building’s stone was cut, and a Roman one is seldom a monument in its own right: what survives is a rock face or a hollow, the shape of the stone that was taken away. It earns a visit when it explains something you have come to see anyway.

That is the case at Antas, in a valley in south-west Sardinia. The archaeological area around the Roman temple of Sardus Pater takes in the Roman quarries from which the limestone blocks for the temple were cut (it.wikipedia). OpenStreetMap places them about 500 m from the temple as the crow flies. The temple’s porch columns, standing about 8 m high again since their restoration, are of local limestone too (it.wikipedia; de.wikipedia), so a visit can follow the stone from where it was cut to the building it became.

The quarries were not the only workings in the valley. The sanctuary, the ancient limestone quarries around it and the lead and iron ore workings nearby have been identified with Metalla, a place on the Roman road from Tibula at the northern tip of Sardinia to Sulcis in the south (de.wikipedia). Hours, tickets and the way there are on the temple’s page.