Mons Claudianus

Mons Claudianus was a Roman quarry in the eastern desert of Egypt. It consisted of a slave settlement, a garrison and a quarrying site. Black Quartz diorite was mined for the Roman Empire where it was used as a building material. Mons Claudianus is located in the mountains of the Egyptian Eastern desert about midway between the Red Sea and Qena. Today tourists can see fragments of granite, with several artifacts such as a broken column. A number of texts written on broken pottery (ostraca) have been discovered at the site. They show that unlike the situation at many other Roman quarries, most of the Mons Claudianus workers were free, not slaves.