Editing Alabaster (section)

====Aragon, Spain====
{{One source|section|date=May 2021}}

Much of the world's alabaster is extracted from the centre of the [[Ebro Valley]] in [[Aragon]], [[Spain]], which has the world's largest known exploitable deposits.<ref name="AragonGov">{{cite web |url= http://www.aragon.es/estaticos/GobiernoAragon/Departamentos/IndustriaInnovacion/Areas/Mineria/alabaster%20in%20Aragon.pdf |title= Alabaster in Aragon (Spain) |access-date= 2015-12-06 |archive-date= 2018-04-03 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20180403225553/http://www.aragon.es/estaticos/GobiernoAragon/Departamentos/IndustriaInnovacion/Areas/Mineria/alabaster%20in%20Aragon.pdf |url-status= dead }}</ref> According to a brochure published by the Aragon government, alabaster has elsewhere either been depleted, or its extraction is so difficult that it has almost been abandoned or is carried out at a very high cost.<ref name="AragonGov"/>{{unreliable_source?|reason=Commercial motivation to mislead is probable.|certain=yes|date=April 2018|}}<!-- Skeptical that an agency overseeing industry, commerce, and tourism would have no selfish purposes in publishing such information: no secondary sources of documentation are listed to corroborate veracity of their claim; claim may be more–or–less correct, but this source is certainly unreliable.--> There are two separate sites in Aragon, both are located in [[Tertiary]] basins.<ref name="AragonGov"/> The most important site is the Fuentes-[[Azaila]] area, in the Tertiary [[Ebro]] Basin.<ref name="AragonGov"/> The other is the [[Calatayud]]-Teruel Basin, which divides the Iberian Range in two main sectors (NW and SE).<ref name="AragonGov"/>

The abundance of Aragonese alabaster was crucial for its use in architecture, sculpture and decoration.<ref name="AragonGov"/> There is no record of use by pre-Roman cultures, so the first ones to use alabaster from Aragon may have been the Romans, who produced vessels from alabaster following the Greek and Egyptian models.<ref name="AragonGov"/> It seems that since the reconstruction of the Roman Wall in [[Zaragoza]] in the 3rd century AD with alabaster, the use of this material became common in building for centuries.<ref name="AragonGov"/> Muslim Saraqusta (Zaragoza) was also called "Medina Albaida", the White City, due to the appearance of its alabaster walls and palaces, which stood out among gardens, groves and orchards by the Ebro and Huerva Rivers.<ref name="AragonGov"/>

The oldest remains in the [[Aljafería]] Palace, together with other interesting elements like capitals, reliefs and inscriptions, were made using alabaster, but it was during the artistic and economic blossoming of the Renaissance that Aragonese alabaster reached its golden age.<ref name="AragonGov"/> In the 16th century sculptors in Aragon chose alabaster for their best works. They were adept at exploiting its lighting qualities and generally speaking the finished art pieces retained their natural color.<ref name="AragonGov"/>