Book matching skillz are on-point
So, far, we haven’t found any quarries so we don’t know a lot about how they used to fabricate stone.
However, an examination of ancient slabs revealed saw marks from a water-powered saw mill.
This was used to make slabs about 5/8 inch thick and roughly 4ft x 4ft in size.
They were definitely more efficient
What researchers have found was that the Romans fabrication process resulted in:
- less material loss with their polishing and cutting process
- less breakage of slabs
I’m pretty sure that less breakage can be easily explained by a lack of forklifts running around and bashing into everything.
These slabs were then hung on walls as decorative cladding.
How good were their skills?
Take a look at this image from Scitechdaily that shows their book-matching capabilities.
Other ancient tile finds
Although the Romans did great work their history isn’t exactly spotless. Here’s an article about their 5th Century counterparts that didn’t exactly nail their layouts on this mosaic.
And the Greeks aren’t without fault either. You know that 3-4-5 triangle that we use for squaring floors? It may be called the Pythagorean theorem except it wasn’t invented by Pythagoras.
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