Mons Porphyrites

Mons Porphyrites (today Gebel Dokhan) is the mountainous site of a group of ancient quarries in the Red Sea Hills of the Eastern Desert in Egypt. Under the Roman Empire, they were the only known source of the purple "imperial" variety of porphyry. They were exploited between the 1st and 5th centuries AD. The other imperial quarries in the Eastern Desert were Mons Claudianus, Mons Ophiates and Tiberiane. These four quarries were probably under a unified administration, since the same procurator metallorum is found in more than one. The quarries were discovered by Caius Cominus Leugas in AD 18. Their exploitation can be traced by hundreds of ostraca from not long after until the 430s. They were accessible only by means of a circuitous branch of the road between Caene on the Nile and the Roman fort on the Red Sea coast (today Abu Sha'ar). The small fort of Deir el-Atrash lies along the route. The actual quarries were spread out over 9 square kilometres (3.5 sq mi). There were five dispersed villages for workers and a central complex at Wadi Abu Ma'amel 630 metres (2, 070 ft) above sea level. The highest quarries were at Rammius at 1,438 metres (4, 718 ft). Quarried stone had to be dropped down slipways to the wadi below. The central complex had a workers' settlement, a fort, temples to Sarapis and Isis Megiste, a bath with a hypocaust and a cemetery. The temple of Isis can be dated

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