Cipollino marble

It was first used by the ancient Greeks and Romans, whose Latin term for it was marmor carystium (meaning "marble from Karystos").

It was quarried in several locations on the south-west coast of the Greek island of Euboea, between the modern-day cities of Styra and Karystos.

The colour of its base and grain grows darker the further north the location of the quarry.

It is a metamorphic rock, a marble with crystals between 0.2 and 0.6 mm, with coloured veins of epidote and chlorite.

[2] First used in ancient Greece, it was exported to Rome from the 1st century BC onwards; in his Natural History,[3] Pliny the Elder tells how columns of this marble were used in the home of the eques Claudius Mamurra, who had been an engineer for Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars.