Received: 7 November 2017 | Revised: 2 May 2018 | Accepted: 24 May 2018 DOI: 10.1002/gea.21699 RESEARCH ARTICLE Calcite alabaster artifacts from Hierapolis in Phrygia, Turkey: Provenance determination using carbon and oxygen stable isotopes Giuseppe Scardozzi 1 | Mauro Brilli 2 | Francesca Giustini 2 1 Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto per i Beni Archeologici e Monumentali (CNR), Lecce, Italy 2 Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Geologia Ambientale e Geoingegneria (CNR), Monterotondo, Rome, Italy Correspondence Mauro Brilli, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Geologia Ambientale e Geoingegneria (CNR), Via Salaria, km 29.300, 00015 Monterotondo, Roma, Italy. Email: mauro.brilli@cnr.it Funding information Italian Ministry for University and Research, Grant/Award Number: RBFR121D9W; Italian Archaeological Mission at Hierapolis (MAIER) Scientific editing by Panagiotis Karkanas Abstract Alabastro fiorito or listato, a vividly colored and strongly patterned carbonate stone, is widely diffused in the ancient city of Hierapolis in Phrygia (Turkey) as building material. This stone, also known as Hierapolis alabaster, was extensively quarried in antiquity in the territory near the city. Numerous ancient quarries of the Hierapolis alabaster were documented in previous studies in sites immediately around the city and also about 13 km northwest of Hierapolis, near Gölemezli. Carbon and oxygen stable isotopes and X‐ray diffraction (XRD) analysis were used to investigate the possibility to discriminate different quarries or different geographically coherent extraction areas; these techniques were also applied to analyze alabaster artifacts from some monuments of Hierapolis as a case study. The data show that carbon and oxygen isotopes may be effective at distinguishing between the quarries of Gölemezli and Hierapolis, and allow for attribution of unknown alabaster artifacts to one of these areas. The possibility to identify the provenance of unknown alabasters from the different extraction sites or geographically coherent extraction areas near Hierapolis using isotopes only is difficult; in some cases XRD analysis to detect aragonite versus calcite may improve the discrimination among Hierapolitan quarries and contribute to the assignment procedure. KEYWORDS alabaster, carbon and oxygen stable isotopes, Hierapolis in Phrygia 1 | INTRODUCTION Hierapolis in Phrygia is a Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine city in southwestern Turkey, near the modern village of Pamukkale, in the Denizli region. Sixty years of excavation by the Italian Archaeological Mission allow a deep knowledge of the urban layout and monuments of the city (D’Andria & Caggia, 2007; D’Andria, Caggia, & Ismaelli, 2012, 2016; Ritti, 2017; Scardozzi, 2015b). The urban area of Hierapolis stretches over a travertine shelf looking onto the broad and fertile valley of the Çürüksu River, better known as Denizli Basin and corresponding to the ancient Lykos River, one of the tributaries of the Maeander River. The steep slope is covered with extensive, white calcareous deposits, produced by carbonate precipitation from surface runoff of hot waters, which spring out of some emergences from the central area of the city. These emergences are located along the fissures of a seismic fault, which is still active and was responsible for several earthquakes during past epochs. The history of Hierapolis, founded in the third century BC, was marked by destructive seismic events, which have also determined the main phases of its urban development. A first important monumental phase was in the Augustan and Julio‐Claudian epochs, when the main sanctuaries dedicated to Apollo and Hades were organized and various monuments, such as the Theater, the Central Agora and the Gymnasium were built. After a devastating earthquake in AD 60, there was an intense period of monument building which led to the expansion of the city during the Flavian age and again in Geoarchaeology. 2019;34:169-186. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/gea © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. | 169