The tomb of Emperor Otto the Great in Magdeburg Cathedral is currently being extensively conserved. The experts have now examined the stone sarcophagus in more detail and found out where the marble from which the cover plate is made comes from. Contrary to what was previously assumed, the white-gray marble did not come from Italy or Greece, but from the Turkish Marmara Island. A slab was carved from the rock in late antiquity and was initially installed in Ravenna. Only later was it reused for the grave in Magdeburg, as the team reports.
The famous tomb of Emperor Otto I, or Otto the Great, is located in Magdeburg Cathedral. He is considered the successor of Charlemagne and a key figure in European history because he brought the Roman Empire back to Western and Central Europe and thus laid the foundation for the later Holy Roman Empire. Otto I ensured that Magdeburg was elevated to an archbishopric in 968, which brought economic and cultural prosperity to the city on the Elbe. Therefore, after his death in 973, the emperor was buried in Magdeburg Cathedral. Since the church building was rebuilt in the 13th century, his tomb has been located centrally in the inner choir of the cathedral and is a well-known monument.
Since January 2025, this culturally and historically important grave site has been extensively renovated and preserved by experts from the Cultural Foundation of Saxony-Anhalt and the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology (LDA) Saxony-Anhalt in order to repair any damage that has occurred. The historians and conservators use modern methods to analyze both the exterior, the stone sarcophagus, and the wooden coffin containing the emperor’s bones inside. In March they first removed the cover plate of the sarcophagus and examined it more closely. It was already known that the trough of the sarcophagus is made of limestone, but the cover plate is made of white marble, which is streaked with dark bands. It was also assumed that the plate was made in antiquity and later reused for the imperial tomb.
Marble from Proconnesos instead of Carrara
Now proven marble experts from Vienna and Bochum have examined the underside of the slab for the first time, determined its exact dimensions and taken two small drill samples from the white and dark areas of the rock. They subjected these samples to various microscopic and chemical analyzes to determine the mineralogical characteristics. They compared the findings with existing data on around 7,500 marble samples from ancient quarries in the Mediterranean region as well as from northern Italy and the eastern Alpine region. Based on this, the historians have now found out which deposit the raw material comes from.
The surprising result: It is not Carrara marble from the Apuan Alps in northern Italy or Cipollino marble from the Greek island of Euboea, as previously assumed. Instead, the marble of the grave slab comes from the Proconnesus deposits on the Turkish Marmara Island in the sea of the same name. So-called Proconnesos or Marmara marble has been mined there since the seventh century BC until today. This rock is predominantly white, but has characteristic gray bands with clearly defined edges and varying color intensity. In ancient times, stonemasons usually cut the marble blocks so that the bands followed the longitudinal axis. In Otto’s gravestone, however, the gray bands are tightly folded and have dissolved and jagged edges at an angle to the longitudinal axis. The experts conclude that this stone block was only carved from the deposit in late antiquity, when this technique became fashionable.
Stolen marble slab from Ravenna
Similar works made of Marmara marble of this cut type are particularly known from Ravenna in Northern Italy, but also from San Marco in Venice and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. For these buildings, columns as well as slabs for walls and floors were often made from the white-gray Proconnesian marble. The experts therefore suspect that Otto I’s gravestone was originally in a building in Italy and was only later stolen from there and brought to Magdeburg as loot. It is fitting that the emperor lived in Northern Italy for about ten years of his life and that it was common practice at that time to “import” components of ancient buildings from Rome and Ravenna to Central Europe as spoils. Delivering the raw material directly from the Proconnesian quarries was logistically and politically hardly possible at Otto’s time.
Source: State Office for Monument Preservation and Archeology Saxony-Anhalt – State Museum of Prehistory