Stone working on a turning lathe – an antique technology in experiment

Abstract

In the collection of the Archaeological Museum in Frankfurt there are a series of roman stone monuments with round, symmetrical shapes that stand out from the rest because of their fine profiles and precise manufacture. They all had been worked on a stone turning lathe. There is neither an exact antique description nor an antique illustration nor an archaeological find from this »machine«. So an experimental reconstruction of its appearance was attempted. The author approached the reconstruction first by investigating the current state of research for antique stone turning lathes and the analysis of technical traces on the original stones. The assumption of many other authors that stones with a huge weight could not be mounted and turned horizontally is disproved by experiment. Important insights concerning details for the swivel, the closing joint and drive mechanism were obtained by further tests. The final product was a reconstructed stone turning lathe, which, due to its simple construction, could have been part of every stone mason’s workshop. An outlook concerning still unanswered questions of this interesting and so far not much attended topic »antique stone working on a lathe« concludes this article.
T. Maletschek