CHEMTOU:
Underground quarries
A crater in the marble mountain made by nothing but human labour.
Rubble or stones unfinished at the time when Chemtou was conquered by the Vandals.
Chemtou marble was famous for its play of stripes and different colours.
For me, the most impressive part of the visit to Chemtou was the crossing of the marble mountain, then looking down into the underground quarry. It truly looks impressive with the smooth marble walls diving straight down. The process of cutting out the marble is everything as hard as it sounds, and the field here is the result of decades of labour from thousands of men. You will pass a couple of rocks that never were completed, I don't know for which reason. Perhaps they were of inferior quality or perhaps they were worked at at the times when Chemtou and its heyday came to an end, sometime in the 7th century with the Arab invasion.
