Verd antique (obsolete French, from Italian, verde antico, "ancient green"), also called verde antique, marmor thessalicum, or Ophite, is a serpentinitebreccia[1] popular since ancient times as a decorative facing stone. It is a dark, dull green, white-mottled (or white-veined) serpentine, mixed with calcite, dolomite, or magnesite, which takes a high polish.[2] The term verd antique has been documented in English texts as early as 1745.[citation needed]
It is sometimes classed, erroneously, as a variety of marble ("Thessalian marble", "serpentine marble", "Moriah stone", etc.). It has also been called and marketed as "ophicalcite" or "ophite".[3]
Verd antique is used like marble especially in interior decoration and occasionally as outdoor trim, although the masses are frequently jointed and often only small slabs can be secured.
Verd antique from Larissa was used in the fifth-century churches of Thessaloniki. Columns, ambons, iconostasis, and fonts of verd antique are found in the Church of the Acheiropoietos, Hagios Demetrios, and Hagia Sophia, Thessaloniki. Evliya Çelebi described the green ambo of Hagia Sophia was a ‘rare admirable artistic piece of construction’ ... ‘one of the monuments of the whole world’.[9] This ambo of Hagia Sophia in Thessaloniki is now in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. Another, smaller such ambo exists in the church of Hagios Minas in Thessaloniki, with another sixth-century Thessalicum ambo discovered among other ecclesiastical stonework in the "Marzamemi shipwreck" off Sicily.[9]
Verd antique is very similar in colour to the national gemstone of Ireland, Connemara marble. Connemara marble differs from the verd antiques in that it is an actual marble, rather than a serpentinite breccia, despite also having a very high serpentine content. It is named after the region in the western part of the country in which it is quarried (including Lissoughter in Recess, County Galway, and in Clifden).[10]
Hager, Albert D. and Billings, E. Report on the Economical Geology, Physical Geography and Scenery of Vermont. Claremont, N.H.: Claremont Manufacturing Co., 1862, p. 50.
Hitchcock, Edward. Report on the Geology of Vermont: Descriptive, Theoretical, Economical, and Scenographical. Proctorsville, Vt.: Vermont State Legislature, 1861, p. 534.
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