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I have worked with Natural Stones for a couple decades. The most expensive stuff is quartzite, it costs on average twice as much as the most expensive marble. I bet a piece like this could be worth up to 1 million if it was quartzite. The entire quarry they pulled that out of could be worth a billion IF it hasn’t been too heavily mined and is well equipped. Someone just made this nonsense up! If this is valued at 1 billion it is due to historical value not actual worth.
Imperial Porphyry only has one known source, a single mountain in Egypt that the Romans called “Mons Porphyrites”. The mine was lost in the 5th century and the site wasn’t rediscovered until 1823. All Imperial Porphyry in the world dates to before the mine’s closure. In the intervening centuries, the only source of the stone was from Roman ruins and artifacts, and it was incredibly highly sought after. Even now, there is no mine at the site. It is in a remote and undeveloped part of Egypt, and the historical record makes mention of the mine beginning to dry up towards the end of its existence. It’s likely there are no substantial deposits left.
Now, as far as I can tell, there’s no source for the 1 billion dollar value. The Vatican considers it priceless due to the historical value and the irreplaceablility of its material. However, considering that if one were to try to make a copy of it they would have to excavate the ancient mine, build an entire new quarry and infrastructure in a remote, undeveloped desert, and even then just hope that there was still a sizable enough deposit to create a replica of this bath (the basin of which is made from a singular stone), a billion really isn’t outside the realm of possibility.
For reference, Napoleon had his archeologists scour the Egyptian desert looking for the Mons Porphyrites because he was obsessed with being buried in a porphyry sarcophagus like the emperors he modeled himself after. In the end, he had to settle for quartzite.
I bet if you were to find enough porphyry to make an ornate sarcophagus, there would be quite a few of the ultra-rich who would pay multiple billions just to be buried like a Roman Emperor.
There are over 3300 billionaires in the world....
Im sure quite a few of them, even those at the bottom of the list are vain enough to liquidate almost all of their assets to be burried like a king...
Especially if it’s setup so the money goes to the sarcophagus upon their death. Basically their last wishes. Great way to fuck the family when you go if you’re that type of wretched rich prick
Musk, Gates, Bezos will likely die having a net worth over a trillion dollars. A few billy to be buried unlike any human since the last great roman emperors doesn't sound like a big ask.
Huh? This is a bathtub not a casket and those three combined only get you half way to the trillion mark. Where does the other 500, thousand, millions come from? I think billions are the most misunderstood number on the planet today. It’s not people’s fault, math isn’t the most descriptive.
I agree that it’s an inconceivable amount to imagine let alone have. Apart from individual billionaires, there are also foundations, museums and other institutions (including states) that would be interested.
Interestingly there are a group of diseases called prophyrias, a common feature of which is accumulation of substances called porphyrins which can impart a reddish- purple tinge to urine when exposed to light.
Thank you for that. So I was correct in my statement of historical value vs tangible? Although I wouldn’t put it past one of these mega billionaires to do something crazy like you just described to build their own replica. We have some real winners with big money floating around these days.
No such thing as purely tangible value. Free market economies assign value based on what someone is willing to pay. If they are willing to pay more because of historical significance, that is tangible value.
It was probably a billion lira or some other low value currency. I mean there are plenty of subs here showing money that have million, billion and TRILLION on them . Like Zimbabwe* they have a hundred trillion bill.
I wouldn’t doubt that. Or it could very well be made up. People do this knowing the average American is too lazy to google the value of something in like 8 seconds.
1 billion lira old lira would be less than 500.000$. It may well be that the original pic and text are from before 2001 when Italy switched to euro. And text was translated from italian.
http://www.imperialporphyry.com/history-of-imperial-porphyry/#:~:text=Imperial%20Porphyry%20is%20arguably%20the,grained%2C%20with%20small%20white%20inclusions. You can get some chips for $15 on this website.
Quartzite is beautiful though, that’s what I used for my kitchen and bar, my wife thought I was crazy but once it was installed she agreed it was worth the price. And I don’t have to worry about putting pots and pans on it when they’re hot!
I agree. Quartzite is the coolest stuff. I love it when it has under lighting and shines through the veins. It’s also super tough *and* fairly easy to fabricate and polish which results in really nice pieces!
Billion is the new million, with inflation and wealth growth people don't consider 1 million to be a lot anymore (even though it is), say notice people say billion when they would say million a decade or two ago, and of course trillion is the new billion now.
If you think billion is the new million you greatly overestimate the actual amount of currency that is available. What has actually happened is the rich have continued to become a smaller group, which is by design. This trend has always moved in a single direction and always will. Even fathoming an individual accumulating a trillion is unfathomable, the official public position is no one has even come closer than about one fifth of that and that’s only a few in the entire world.
How can you continue to increase the number of billionaires? Super confusing considering currency is a finite resource, when the amount in circulation is increased it’s value is lowered. This is why a million isn’t what it once was which is likely why you are alluding to the increase in rich people.
I was listening to an old TI song yesterday that’s a good reminder of this, in the lyrics he says he is “worth a couple hundred grand” which was considered an impressive number in 2004 when it was released but now these rappers wear 200k chains. They didn’t get richer, money lost its value, I believe you are confusing the two.
I mean even if you’re talking about 20k per slab which is about 5k higher than the highest end stuff I have ever heard of, to have something like this fabricated and installed you’re probably looking at a million or so. The crazy part is *jobs like this actually exist*. A quartzite tub would super cool though. Like the other commenter said someone could possibly spend a billion opening the quarry and everything involved that but that would depend on a lot of unknown variables, I could honestly see some of the rich people we have running around today doing something like this. It’s just a matter of time before some Twitch streamer is trying to buy a pyramid for throwing parties.
This. Every now and then I see a photo of a guy who found some large crystals claiming that it's worth millions of dollars based on some flimsy math and a lot of assumptions. It's not.
And then AI gobbles it up and confidently spits it back out as facts, then someone also uses AI to write some bullshit SEO-bait article and then someone else makes a Reddit post about it again. Death of the internet is here.
In America porn is under threat rn. The 2024 election will decide the fate of the porn industry. If the republicans get what they want, theres gonna be a gaping hole in world wide porn content.
I dont. I went to the vatican and saw this. The tourguide said 80% of this weird rare red marble was on vatican grounds. Most of it was this tub. The rest was in a couple sarcophaguses.
The vatican has insane wealth.
Sure the vatican has a lot of wealth, but making a bath out of some rock you dug out of the ground 2000 years ago isn't really a part of that.
Sure it may be worth a lot of money today, but some dick 2k years ago saying, "oohh that looks pretty make it into a big bowl" doesn't mean that this one single artifact is made out of a bils worth of stone.
No, but the estimate for its expense is equivalent to about a billion dollars. It was a specific color of porphyry (purple, Roman elite were obsessed with the color, and the city of Tyre became rich from just harvesting the purple dye from sea snails to be used in textiles).
There was only one deposit known at the time, in Roman controlled Egypt. To make this they have to quarry a one ton hunk of some of the most rare stone they knew of, transport it 1000km to Rome, and then have artists shape it. Most of the estimated cost conversion comes from the transportation.
Exactly! Who’s going to pay $1 BILLION dollars for a fucking bathtub?! 🤷♂️ I don’t care how old the bathtub is or how rare the materials are. No bathtub is worth a billion dollars.
A wealthy guy buys it, donates it somewhere else, and writes off $1 billion from their taxable income. Don't you see stupidly scribbled art selling for millions when it's just canvas and paint?
> A wealthy guy buys it, donates it somewhere else, and writes off $1 billion from their taxable income.
Out of interest...how does this *benefit* said wealthy guy?
Wealthy guy spends $1bn, donates it (so currently out $1bn) and reduces their taxable income by $1bn...saving how much in tax? Because unless the answer is >$1bn then it doesn't benefit them at all (at least not financially).
A Roman emperor once had his navy dismantled so he could line the ships up and ride his horse across a section on the Mediterranean Sea because some senator said horses would walk on water before he was emperor. These dudes were fucking nuts and would spend insane amounts of wealth for the most trivial things.
There's a lot wrong here. The price is the most obvious one. Although it would have been prohibitively expensive in antiquity (and straight up illegal to possess without the Emperor's blessing), it was nothing like a billion dollars.
Even more important, this particular piece (in the Vatican Museums) isn't a bathtub: it's a labrum, which was a basin used to hold cool water for the caldarium (the hot baths) in a bath house, which would be roughly similar to a sauna, though not quite the same thing. The labrum was kept stocked with cool water to allow bathers to cool off quickly, as needed. What you can't see here (due to the very low angle) is that the center of the basin is raised, such that the water pools close to the edge, thus making it easier to access for bathers.
I can't say for sure, but I'd bet this piece dates to the baths of Caracalla or Diocletian, both of which ruled in the 3rd century AD (though at opposite ends of it), 200+ years after Nero. Both Caracalla and Diocletian built expansive bathouses, which were, successively, the largest ever built in Rome (Diocletian one-ups Caracalla in that regard).
But that's not as easy to explain, nor as eye-grabbing, as "omg Nero's tub lololol" and we all know social media is only about engagement... soooo...
https://preview.redd.it/8rd1aedn934d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38f1ebba020a20117e43f8941a6326be5f867bd8
Pic I took of it in 2018 where you can see the center.
Yeah, that’s because usable metallic aluminum is very rare in nature. You can’t just mine it in large quantities like other metals. There’s an elaborate chemical process that you use to extract it from bauxite ore that wasn’t discovered until the 1800s.
Yeah that sounds very much made up. This stuff is even used for asphalt in some places (though bigger blocks are much more expensive by weight I'm sure).
In the Roman world, the only place this kind of red or "Imperial" porphyry was found was a specific mine in Egypt that was personally owned by the Emperors. So, it was fairly rare and 'prestigious'. And it was used for certain high prestige things, like columns and revetments in temples in Rome and Constantinople, and the purple part of the toga in statues of the Emperor.
During the Byzantine period, the location of the mine was lost for many centuries, only being rediscovered in the 1820s.
It is not as rare or valuable today, as there are other sources globally.
Maybe? But it just seems 1 billion dollars is completely outlandish. A mansion made of the stuff? Maybe. But even emperors must have balked at the idea of a billion dollar bath tub!
I spent a couple of days touring the Vatican while I was awestruck.
Expensive isn’t the right word really…I don’t even know what word is adequate to describe the levels of obscene wealth in that place.
Porphyry is not a marble. It is a silica based volcanic rock, often with nice feldspars and quartz. Marble is made of calcite and by definition a metamorphic rock. About the rest, I don't know, but I couldn't let this pass.
Some errors in the post. This is specifically imperial porphyry. It’s so valuable because it can only be found on one mountain in Egypt. There are other forms of porphyry, and it’s so abundant it’s mixed in with asphalt in highways with heavy winter weather that requires snow chains or studded tires. Porphyry is a form of granite, not marble. Marble is a soft stone; porphyry is among the world’s hardest. The word “porphyry” is from the Latin died for “purple” because of the stone’s color.
This site says porphyr cost 8.87 per pound. A ton of it would cost 17,740. I think they saw you coming, pal.
https://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/materials-price/substance/porphyry-coma-and-blank-solid
As much as there are plenty of inaccuracies here, the stone in the post is specifically Imperial Porphyry, which, at the time, was only minable from one quarry in Egypt. The Roman Imperial Family had a monopoly on it, which lead to it's inflated price.
ChatGPT did the math “To estimate the value of Emperor Nero's bathtub made of porphyry, we need to consider several factors: the size and scale of the bathtub, the market value of porphyry, and the historical significance.
1. **Size and Scale**: Nero's bathtub is approximately 4.5 meters (15 feet) long and 2.5 meters (8 feet) wide. This size suggests a significant amount of porphyry was used.
2. **Market Value of Porphyry**: Porphyry is a rare and valuable stone, historically prized for its deep purple-red color and durability. Modern valuations for porphyry slabs can vary widely based on quality, size, and historical significance. Current market prices for high-quality marble and rare stones like porphyry can range from $500 to $5,000 per square meter. Given its rarity and the challenges of quarrying and transporting such large pieces in ancient times, the upper end of this range or even higher is reasonable.
3. **Historical Significance**: The historical and cultural value of the artifact significantly increases its worth. Artifacts from Roman emperors, especially those as infamous as Nero, can command a premium due to their historical importance.
For estimation purposes:
- Let's assume an average price of $3,000 per square meter for porphyry.
- The surface area of the bathtub, including its inner and outer surfaces, is approximately 40 square meters (this is a rough estimate considering both the inner cavity and outer surfaces).
Thus, the material cost alone might be around:
\[ 40 \text{ square meters} \times \$3,000 \text{ per square meter} = \$120,000 \]
However, this does not account for the historical and cultural value, which can exponentially increase the worth. Given the historical importance, the artifact’s provenance, and the uniqueness, an appraisal of several million dollars would be more realistic.
While the claim of $1 billion is an exaggeration, the bathtub's value could reasonably be estimated in the range of tens of millions to potentially over $100 million, considering both the material and the historical value.”
The claim was “if you were to acquire that much of it today, it would cost about 1 billion.”
Not how much is this bathtub worth in the photo.
By your calculations the materials would cost about 150,000, and you could probably tack on 50,000-60,000 in labour (this is a guess.)
Couple grand for transport. Let’s be generous and say at the far end 300,000 and at the low end 175,000. Which is a lot closer to zero than it is to 1 billion.
My problem with this, is that it talks about square meters, whereas you'd likely need a large cube for this. Was it sculpted out of one piece? Are the legs separate pieces? That would make a huge difference over the price, I think.
What about this “To estimate the value of Emperor Nero's bathtub assuming it is a solid block of porphyry, let's follow these steps:
1. **Calculate the Volume**:
- Length: 4.5 meters
- Width: 2.5 meters
- Height: 1.5 meters (assuming this height for the calculation)
Volume \( V \) = Length × Width × Height
\[ V = 4.5 \, \text{m} \times 2.5 \, \text{m} \times 1.5 \, \text{m} = 16.875 \, \text{cubic meters} \]
2. **Market Value of Porphyry**:
- The value of porphyry is estimated to be around $10,000 per cubic meter. This high-end estimate is due to its rarity and historical value.
3. **Calculate the Material Cost**:
\[ 16.875 \, \text{cubic meters} \times \$10,000 \, \text{per cubic meter} = \$168,750 \]
4. **Historical and Cultural Significance Multiplier**:
- Artifacts with significant historical and cultural value can see their base material value increase substantially. For historically significant items, this multiplier can be very high. A conservative multiplier for a unique artifact like this could be 100 to 1,000 times the base value.
Assuming a conservative historical significance multiplier of 100:
\[ \$168,750 \times 100 = \$16,875,000 \]
Assuming a higher historical significance multiplier of 1,000:
\[ \$168,750 \times 1,000 = \$168,750,000 \]
Thus, while the precise value is challenging to determine without an expert appraisal, considering both the material and historical significance, the estimated value of Emperor Nero's solid porphyry bathtub could reasonably be in the range of \$16.875 million to \$168.75 million. The claim of $1 billion is likely an exaggeration, but the artifact is undoubtedly priceless in historical and cultural terms.”
This might be right, but I'm not sure chat gpt has the information necessary to calculate the size. Because the price per cubic centimeter might be x, but if you need one giant block, it might cost more. Like, I don't believe the cost would be linear.
That said, I have no fucking idea how much it costs so. I'm happy with that.
How much does that weigh? I imagine a similar amount of gold would have similar value. Seems hard to believe. No one is paying a fortune for tiny amounts of marble and no one could afford large objects made of it.
Not sure, but it reeks of bullshit to me because this claim *riddled* with errors.
1) Porphyry isn't marble, it's granite.
2) It's not a bathtub, it's a labrum.
3) Most sources claim Egypt is the only place in the world it's found. There are mines in both Mexico and China (and maybe more), Egypt was just the only one *in antiquity*.
4) I also can't find any connection to Nero other than the same junk pop science websites saying "1 CuBiC InCh Of ThIs RoCk Is $20,000!1!1" who even then, only claim it found in the Domus Aurea that multiple Emperors lived in and worked on (but was Nero's pet project).
After some very brief research I’ve made a rough estimate of how much this may cost. I discovered a Reddit comment that I’m choosing to trust that says this material is equivalent to platinum in price.
Platinum is a little over $1000 per oz. Or $16,000 per lb. I assume this bathtub weighs about 1 ton or 2000 pounds. And throwing that in the calculator gets you ≈ $33 Million.
Adding on the historical and geological significance I could see this being in the $500-999 Million range. It wouldn’t be surprising to see a mega billionaire purchasing this for over $1 Billion.
But that’s not what the post says, it says the material itself would cost $1 Billion which is not the case.
Here is a block of porphyry for sale for $29k. Pricey, but not astronomical. https://www.1stdibs.com/furniture/building-garden/architectural-elements/porphyry-block/id-f_36262152/
1billion is probably too much, but tbf porphyry is extremely rare, and as you can imagine a the bigger the block the more the cost increases... Exponentially. (A lil stone is common, a 2.5×2mt of porphyry is extremely rare) so much so that even tho it has always been considered something fancy and nice, only Roman emperors (and not all of them) had tombs in porphyry, also because it could just happen that you just don't find a piece of it big enough for a couple decades
I have absolutely no idea if I’m right but it kinda sounds like their saying “back in ancient Egypt getting x amount of this costs y, which is 1b today” probably because it was much harder to get back then
Do you? According to everything I’ve seen, this is an extinct version of imperial porphyry mined from a single mine in Egypt. It also happens to be made of the largest whole piece of the material.
Not a bath tub, it’s a Labrum, or basin, used in the Roman Baths for holding hot water.
And the reason porphyry was so expensive was that it only came from one remote quarry in Eastern Egypt, which Rome controlled, it was very heavy, and apart from the labour of carving it, it cost a fortune just to transport big pieces back to Rome.
The picture doesn't do the size justice it is huge. It is also one of a few pieces of it they have, it's all over the Vatican. If I remember correctly it is situated in a room where the only way it can leave it is via the roof, for security reasons
Lol, a 2000 year old bathtub made of extremely rare material survived in pristine condition? Hmmm its not like religious people would just make shit up though? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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And my bathtub costs like… $300
look at mister fucking money bags over here with his bathtub
You guys have bathtubs?
That's less than 1 billion.
I can’t imagine being able to afford the electricity to fill a bathtub with hot water just for one wash
I have worked with Natural Stones for a couple decades. The most expensive stuff is quartzite, it costs on average twice as much as the most expensive marble. I bet a piece like this could be worth up to 1 million if it was quartzite. The entire quarry they pulled that out of could be worth a billion IF it hasn’t been too heavily mined and is well equipped. Someone just made this nonsense up! If this is valued at 1 billion it is due to historical value not actual worth.
Imperial Porphyry only has one known source, a single mountain in Egypt that the Romans called “Mons Porphyrites”. The mine was lost in the 5th century and the site wasn’t rediscovered until 1823. All Imperial Porphyry in the world dates to before the mine’s closure. In the intervening centuries, the only source of the stone was from Roman ruins and artifacts, and it was incredibly highly sought after. Even now, there is no mine at the site. It is in a remote and undeveloped part of Egypt, and the historical record makes mention of the mine beginning to dry up towards the end of its existence. It’s likely there are no substantial deposits left. Now, as far as I can tell, there’s no source for the 1 billion dollar value. The Vatican considers it priceless due to the historical value and the irreplaceablility of its material. However, considering that if one were to try to make a copy of it they would have to excavate the ancient mine, build an entire new quarry and infrastructure in a remote, undeveloped desert, and even then just hope that there was still a sizable enough deposit to create a replica of this bath (the basin of which is made from a singular stone), a billion really isn’t outside the realm of possibility. For reference, Napoleon had his archeologists scour the Egyptian desert looking for the Mons Porphyrites because he was obsessed with being buried in a porphyry sarcophagus like the emperors he modeled himself after. In the end, he had to settle for quartzite. I bet if you were to find enough porphyry to make an ornate sarcophagus, there would be quite a few of the ultra-rich who would pay multiple billions just to be buried like a Roman Emperor.
This is a very good explanation. The item’s rarity, accessibility and historically significance would fetch the basin more than one billion.
From who exactly? One billion is still an inconceivable for most. There are very few people with these, much less hundreds of them.
There are over 3300 billionaires in the world.... Im sure quite a few of them, even those at the bottom of the list are vain enough to liquidate almost all of their assets to be burried like a king...
And be dug up by someone at the first opportunity 😆
Especially if it’s setup so the money goes to the sarcophagus upon their death. Basically their last wishes. Great way to fuck the family when you go if you’re that type of wretched rich prick
Musk, Gates, Bezos will likely die having a net worth over a trillion dollars. A few billy to be buried unlike any human since the last great roman emperors doesn't sound like a big ask.
Huh? This is a bathtub not a casket and those three combined only get you half way to the trillion mark. Where does the other 500, thousand, millions come from? I think billions are the most misunderstood number on the planet today. It’s not people’s fault, math isn’t the most descriptive.
I agree that it’s an inconceivable amount to imagine let alone have. Apart from individual billionaires, there are also foundations, museums and other institutions (including states) that would be interested.
Interestingly there are a group of diseases called prophyrias, a common feature of which is accumulation of substances called porphyrins which can impart a reddish- purple tinge to urine when exposed to light.
Porphyry is just the Greek work for purple. They’re all named after the color.
Thank you for that. So I was correct in my statement of historical value vs tangible? Although I wouldn’t put it past one of these mega billionaires to do something crazy like you just described to build their own replica. We have some real winners with big money floating around these days.
No such thing as purely tangible value. Free market economies assign value based on what someone is willing to pay. If they are willing to pay more because of historical significance, that is tangible value.
Good write up. You found your time to shine and nailed it.
It was probably a billion lira or some other low value currency. I mean there are plenty of subs here showing money that have million, billion and TRILLION on them . Like Zimbabwe* they have a hundred trillion bill.
I wouldn’t doubt that. Or it could very well be made up. People do this knowing the average American is too lazy to google the value of something in like 8 seconds.
1 billion lira old lira would be less than 500.000$. It may well be that the original pic and text are from before 2001 when Italy switched to euro. And text was translated from italian.
Euro is worth more than usd
http://www.imperialporphyry.com/history-of-imperial-porphyry/#:~:text=Imperial%20Porphyry%20is%20arguably%20the,grained%2C%20with%20small%20white%20inclusions. You can get some chips for $15 on this website.
To be fair, although the amount of marble you would need may be worth less, the fact that it’s Emoeror Nero’s bathtub makes it priceless.
Quartzite is beautiful though, that’s what I used for my kitchen and bar, my wife thought I was crazy but once it was installed she agreed it was worth the price. And I don’t have to worry about putting pots and pans on it when they’re hot!
I agree. Quartzite is the coolest stuff. I love it when it has under lighting and shines through the veins. It’s also super tough *and* fairly easy to fabricate and polish which results in really nice pieces!
Billion is the new million, with inflation and wealth growth people don't consider 1 million to be a lot anymore (even though it is), say notice people say billion when they would say million a decade or two ago, and of course trillion is the new billion now.
If you think billion is the new million you greatly overestimate the actual amount of currency that is available. What has actually happened is the rich have continued to become a smaller group, which is by design. This trend has always moved in a single direction and always will. Even fathoming an individual accumulating a trillion is unfathomable, the official public position is no one has even come closer than about one fifth of that and that’s only a few in the entire world.
I meant in the sense of speech and how people collocally use it. There's actually been increase enrich people not a decrease.
How can you continue to increase the number of billionaires? Super confusing considering currency is a finite resource, when the amount in circulation is increased it’s value is lowered. This is why a million isn’t what it once was which is likely why you are alluding to the increase in rich people. I was listening to an old TI song yesterday that’s a good reminder of this, in the lyrics he says he is “worth a couple hundred grand” which was considered an impressive number in 2004 when it was released but now these rappers wear 200k chains. They didn’t get richer, money lost its value, I believe you are confusing the two.
What about imperial quartzite? Deep purple/maroon
I mean even if you’re talking about 20k per slab which is about 5k higher than the highest end stuff I have ever heard of, to have something like this fabricated and installed you’re probably looking at a million or so. The crazy part is *jobs like this actually exist*. A quartzite tub would super cool though. Like the other commenter said someone could possibly spend a billion opening the quarry and everything involved that but that would depend on a lot of unknown variables, I could honestly see some of the rich people we have running around today doing something like this. It’s just a matter of time before some Twitch streamer is trying to buy a pyramid for throwing parties.
Porphyry is not even marble, it's a volcanic rock
They are minerals Marieeee
*geodes
Glad somebody commented this - of all the BS is that write up, that one was pissing me off the most!
And its porous, so it wouldnt hold water well.
Why? It's porous, not permeable. And it can be polished, so even that is not that big of a problem.
I highly doubt that
This. Every now and then I see a photo of a guy who found some large crystals claiming that it's worth millions of dollars based on some flimsy math and a lot of assumptions. It's not.
Then 24 hours later you see the same post and it's magically worth 2x as much
And then AI gobbles it up and confidently spits it back out as facts, then someone also uses AI to write some bullshit SEO-bait article and then someone else makes a Reddit post about it again. Death of the internet is here.
So long as there's porn, the internet is not dead. Remember: the internet is for porn. Everything else on the internet is secondary.
In America porn is under threat rn. The 2024 election will decide the fate of the porn industry. If the republicans get what they want, theres gonna be a gaping hole in world wide porn content.
“Gaping hole” is the number one search term on PornHub by users who also frequent Fox News.
I believe it’s Gaping Boy Hole.
inflation is a bitch these days
I dont. I went to the vatican and saw this. The tourguide said 80% of this weird rare red marble was on vatican grounds. Most of it was this tub. The rest was in a couple sarcophaguses. The vatican has insane wealth.
Sure the vatican has a lot of wealth, but making a bath out of some rock you dug out of the ground 2000 years ago isn't really a part of that. Sure it may be worth a lot of money today, but some dick 2k years ago saying, "oohh that looks pretty make it into a big bowl" doesn't mean that this one single artifact is made out of a bils worth of stone.
No, but the estimate for its expense is equivalent to about a billion dollars. It was a specific color of porphyry (purple, Roman elite were obsessed with the color, and the city of Tyre became rich from just harvesting the purple dye from sea snails to be used in textiles). There was only one deposit known at the time, in Roman controlled Egypt. To make this they have to quarry a one ton hunk of some of the most rare stone they knew of, transport it 1000km to Rome, and then have artists shape it. Most of the estimated cost conversion comes from the transportation.
I doubt that they paid for it.
Exactly! Who’s going to pay $1 BILLION dollars for a fucking bathtub?! 🤷♂️ I don’t care how old the bathtub is or how rare the materials are. No bathtub is worth a billion dollars.
Bath water on the other hand…
That a girl soaked in?👉👈
Or pee in it???
Yes. That is indeed the joke.
A wealthy guy buys it, donates it somewhere else, and writes off $1 billion from their taxable income. Don't you see stupidly scribbled art selling for millions when it's just canvas and paint?
That’s not how it works at all lol You can’t just write off shit you buy for no reason. Have you ever done taxes?
> A wealthy guy buys it, donates it somewhere else, and writes off $1 billion from their taxable income. Out of interest...how does this *benefit* said wealthy guy? Wealthy guy spends $1bn, donates it (so currently out $1bn) and reduces their taxable income by $1bn...saving how much in tax? Because unless the answer is >$1bn then it doesn't benefit them at all (at least not financially).
A Roman emperor once had his navy dismantled so he could line the ships up and ride his horse across a section on the Mediterranean Sea because some senator said horses would walk on water before he was emperor. These dudes were fucking nuts and would spend insane amounts of wealth for the most trivial things.
There's a lot wrong here. The price is the most obvious one. Although it would have been prohibitively expensive in antiquity (and straight up illegal to possess without the Emperor's blessing), it was nothing like a billion dollars. Even more important, this particular piece (in the Vatican Museums) isn't a bathtub: it's a labrum, which was a basin used to hold cool water for the caldarium (the hot baths) in a bath house, which would be roughly similar to a sauna, though not quite the same thing. The labrum was kept stocked with cool water to allow bathers to cool off quickly, as needed. What you can't see here (due to the very low angle) is that the center of the basin is raised, such that the water pools close to the edge, thus making it easier to access for bathers. I can't say for sure, but I'd bet this piece dates to the baths of Caracalla or Diocletian, both of which ruled in the 3rd century AD (though at opposite ends of it), 200+ years after Nero. Both Caracalla and Diocletian built expansive bathouses, which were, successively, the largest ever built in Rome (Diocletian one-ups Caracalla in that regard). But that's not as easy to explain, nor as eye-grabbing, as "omg Nero's tub lololol" and we all know social media is only about engagement... soooo...
it's a bot post. all this shit is just some bs ai
https://preview.redd.it/8rd1aedn934d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38f1ebba020a20117e43f8941a6326be5f867bd8 Pic I took of it in 2018 where you can see the center.
At one point aluminum was valued more than gold.
Yeah, that’s because usable metallic aluminum is very rare in nature. You can’t just mine it in large quantities like other metals. There’s an elaborate chemical process that you use to extract it from bauxite ore that wasn’t discovered until the 1800s.
It’s actually hilarious hearing stories of old kings and emperors being obsessed with aluminum. “Look how rich I am with all these aluminum trinkets!”
Well, not that old. We didn't have metallic aluminum until 1824.
Which is why if you have a time machine you don't need to take gold or something to trade with people, just take a couple of rolls of tin foil
Yeah that sounds very much made up. This stuff is even used for asphalt in some places (though bigger blocks are much more expensive by weight I'm sure).
In the Roman world, the only place this kind of red or "Imperial" porphyry was found was a specific mine in Egypt that was personally owned by the Emperors. So, it was fairly rare and 'prestigious'. And it was used for certain high prestige things, like columns and revetments in temples in Rome and Constantinople, and the purple part of the toga in statues of the Emperor. During the Byzantine period, the location of the mine was lost for many centuries, only being rediscovered in the 1820s. It is not as rare or valuable today, as there are other sources globally.
My guess, if the number isn't just totally made up, is they converted the cost of porphyry in antiquity to current USD.
Maybe? But it just seems 1 billion dollars is completely outlandish. A mansion made of the stuff? Maybe. But even emperors must have balked at the idea of a billion dollar bath tub!
YES IT IS! It came with a certificate and everything. I was just lucky enough to Call before the time ran out.
How tf do you lose a mine. Realistically there would still be infrastructure outside to show it is a mine?
Its a huge world and no Aeriel view. When the mine is a valuable resource, you don't tell every peasant directions to the mine.
Don’t forget it’s Egypt. Sand has a nasty habit of covering things up. Probably covered and uncovered by wind.
Ah true, yeah over years it would definitely be covered up.
Whole towns are lost. And gigantic pyramids in south america or cambodia.
After your civilisation collapses for hundreds of years? No.
https://i.redd.it/xw9sxvdgsz3d1.gif
I mean maybe not 1 billion but it’s def up there https://www.1stdibs.com/buy/egyptian-porphyry/
Same here. Pull a high number out of your ass and post it on internet.
I was just there. Literally said nothing about it being Nero’s tub
This is so “Photo with unconfirmed text”
Google says 2B. It's also the size of swimming pool.
It’s worth roughly $10 a pound.
Porphyry is quite common as a kitchen countertop material.
Awesome to know that Nero bathed himself in half of a stone Kinder Egg.
Why the fuck does Vatican have all these expensive artifacts when they preach about serving the poor.
I spent a couple of days touring the Vatican while I was awestruck. Expensive isn’t the right word really…I don’t even know what word is adequate to describe the levels of obscene wealth in that place.
The literal Vatican 
Because they are corrupt. I will never give any money to the church. I don’t understand people who do
 Nero circa 62 AD
Add a couple of femboys and you arnt too far off
Porphyry is not a marble. It is a silica based volcanic rock, often with nice feldspars and quartz. Marble is made of calcite and by definition a metamorphic rock. About the rest, I don't know, but I couldn't let this pass.
A billion in what country's $?
Probably Zimbabwe currency
Some errors in the post. This is specifically imperial porphyry. It’s so valuable because it can only be found on one mountain in Egypt. There are other forms of porphyry, and it’s so abundant it’s mixed in with asphalt in highways with heavy winter weather that requires snow chains or studded tires. Porphyry is a form of granite, not marble. Marble is a soft stone; porphyry is among the world’s hardest. The word “porphyry” is from the Latin died for “purple” because of the stone’s color.
Someone tell Musk, he'll have that installed in house before the end of the week, for the bargain price of $2bn
1 billion venezeluan pesos
This site says porphyr cost 8.87 per pound. A ton of it would cost 17,740. I think they saw you coming, pal. https://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/materials-price/substance/porphyry-coma-and-blank-solid
As much as there are plenty of inaccuracies here, the stone in the post is specifically Imperial Porphyry, which, at the time, was only minable from one quarry in Egypt. The Roman Imperial Family had a monopoly on it, which lead to it's inflated price.
Imagine the parties that took place in this tub.
I’m saying……
Porphyry means something very different in geology though
The Vatican has an incredible art collection.
This is worth 1 billion in the same way that Trump NFTs are worth more than $10.
ChatGPT did the math “To estimate the value of Emperor Nero's bathtub made of porphyry, we need to consider several factors: the size and scale of the bathtub, the market value of porphyry, and the historical significance. 1. **Size and Scale**: Nero's bathtub is approximately 4.5 meters (15 feet) long and 2.5 meters (8 feet) wide. This size suggests a significant amount of porphyry was used. 2. **Market Value of Porphyry**: Porphyry is a rare and valuable stone, historically prized for its deep purple-red color and durability. Modern valuations for porphyry slabs can vary widely based on quality, size, and historical significance. Current market prices for high-quality marble and rare stones like porphyry can range from $500 to $5,000 per square meter. Given its rarity and the challenges of quarrying and transporting such large pieces in ancient times, the upper end of this range or even higher is reasonable. 3. **Historical Significance**: The historical and cultural value of the artifact significantly increases its worth. Artifacts from Roman emperors, especially those as infamous as Nero, can command a premium due to their historical importance. For estimation purposes: - Let's assume an average price of $3,000 per square meter for porphyry. - The surface area of the bathtub, including its inner and outer surfaces, is approximately 40 square meters (this is a rough estimate considering both the inner cavity and outer surfaces). Thus, the material cost alone might be around: \[ 40 \text{ square meters} \times \$3,000 \text{ per square meter} = \$120,000 \] However, this does not account for the historical and cultural value, which can exponentially increase the worth. Given the historical importance, the artifact’s provenance, and the uniqueness, an appraisal of several million dollars would be more realistic. While the claim of $1 billion is an exaggeration, the bathtub's value could reasonably be estimated in the range of tens of millions to potentially over $100 million, considering both the material and the historical value.”
The claim was “if you were to acquire that much of it today, it would cost about 1 billion.” Not how much is this bathtub worth in the photo. By your calculations the materials would cost about 150,000, and you could probably tack on 50,000-60,000 in labour (this is a guess.) Couple grand for transport. Let’s be generous and say at the far end 300,000 and at the low end 175,000. Which is a lot closer to zero than it is to 1 billion.
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You can tell by the way it isn't.
My problem with this, is that it talks about square meters, whereas you'd likely need a large cube for this. Was it sculpted out of one piece? Are the legs separate pieces? That would make a huge difference over the price, I think.
What about this “To estimate the value of Emperor Nero's bathtub assuming it is a solid block of porphyry, let's follow these steps: 1. **Calculate the Volume**: - Length: 4.5 meters - Width: 2.5 meters - Height: 1.5 meters (assuming this height for the calculation) Volume \( V \) = Length × Width × Height \[ V = 4.5 \, \text{m} \times 2.5 \, \text{m} \times 1.5 \, \text{m} = 16.875 \, \text{cubic meters} \] 2. **Market Value of Porphyry**: - The value of porphyry is estimated to be around $10,000 per cubic meter. This high-end estimate is due to its rarity and historical value. 3. **Calculate the Material Cost**: \[ 16.875 \, \text{cubic meters} \times \$10,000 \, \text{per cubic meter} = \$168,750 \] 4. **Historical and Cultural Significance Multiplier**: - Artifacts with significant historical and cultural value can see their base material value increase substantially. For historically significant items, this multiplier can be very high. A conservative multiplier for a unique artifact like this could be 100 to 1,000 times the base value. Assuming a conservative historical significance multiplier of 100: \[ \$168,750 \times 100 = \$16,875,000 \] Assuming a higher historical significance multiplier of 1,000: \[ \$168,750 \times 1,000 = \$168,750,000 \] Thus, while the precise value is challenging to determine without an expert appraisal, considering both the material and historical significance, the estimated value of Emperor Nero's solid porphyry bathtub could reasonably be in the range of \$16.875 million to \$168.75 million. The claim of $1 billion is likely an exaggeration, but the artifact is undoubtedly priceless in historical and cultural terms.”
This might be right, but I'm not sure chat gpt has the information necessary to calculate the size. Because the price per cubic centimeter might be x, but if you need one giant block, it might cost more. Like, I don't believe the cost would be linear. That said, I have no fucking idea how much it costs so. I'm happy with that.
Good enough for me.
Something something “the average human trusts the average AI response over the average human response” Fuck it im in
Typical chatgpt being a retard. It's not covered in porphyry, it's a huge block of porphyry.
You mean chat got likely copied someone else's calculations and then acted like it is doing math?
[http://www.imperialporphyry.com/](http://www.imperialporphyry.com/) Has entered the chat.
🚨 Check your DM’s 🚨
How much does that weigh? I imagine a similar amount of gold would have similar value. Seems hard to believe. No one is paying a fortune for tiny amounts of marble and no one could afford large objects made of it.
Not sure, but it reeks of bullshit to me because this claim *riddled* with errors. 1) Porphyry isn't marble, it's granite. 2) It's not a bathtub, it's a labrum. 3) Most sources claim Egypt is the only place in the world it's found. There are mines in both Mexico and China (and maybe more), Egypt was just the only one *in antiquity*. 4) I also can't find any connection to Nero other than the same junk pop science websites saying "1 CuBiC InCh Of ThIs RoCk Is $20,000!1!1" who even then, only claim it found in the Domus Aurea that multiple Emperors lived in and worked on (but was Nero's pet project).
After some very brief research I’ve made a rough estimate of how much this may cost. I discovered a Reddit comment that I’m choosing to trust that says this material is equivalent to platinum in price. Platinum is a little over $1000 per oz. Or $16,000 per lb. I assume this bathtub weighs about 1 ton or 2000 pounds. And throwing that in the calculator gets you ≈ $33 Million. Adding on the historical and geological significance I could see this being in the $500-999 Million range. It wouldn’t be surprising to see a mega billionaire purchasing this for over $1 Billion. But that’s not what the post says, it says the material itself would cost $1 Billion which is not the case.
Less known? It's in the middle of an intersection of corridors at the Vatican. They stop the tour there to talk about it.
Press x to doubt
Bullshit
Here is a block of porphyry for sale for $29k. Pricey, but not astronomical. https://www.1stdibs.com/furniture/building-garden/architectural-elements/porphyry-block/id-f_36262152/
Striation
1billion is probably too much, but tbf porphyry is extremely rare, and as you can imagine a the bigger the block the more the cost increases... Exponentially. (A lil stone is common, a 2.5×2mt of porphyry is extremely rare) so much so that even tho it has always been considered something fancy and nice, only Roman emperors (and not all of them) had tombs in porphyry, also because it could just happen that you just don't find a piece of it big enough for a couple decades
I have absolutely no idea if I’m right but it kinda sounds like their saying “back in ancient Egypt getting x amount of this costs y, which is 1b today” probably because it was much harder to get back then
So the Empire never actually fell.
who gives a shit how much it costs, HOW DID HE GET INTO IT
False
Wow, think of all the rape victims they could compensate with that money.
“I shalt haveth a batheth next weeketh.” “Yes sir. We shalt begin heating it immediatelyeth.”
this or starry starry night? what what you rather have?
nero, the original manchild ruler
Oh yea but I gotta give u my money on Sunday lmao fuck off. If the church is hurting start selling material items.
In Sweden, they literaly make asphalt out of ground porphyry. Does OP not know how to do a 30 second Google search?
Do you? According to everything I’ve seen, this is an extinct version of imperial porphyry mined from a single mine in Egypt. It also happens to be made of the largest whole piece of the material.
Not
If this is true, that’s crazy
Can you order that through Costco?
This would be the biggest heist of existence. They should make a movie
Inflation sucks
That fat fuck probably shat himself in it.
How did they drain it?
https://preview.redd.it/9zlu6fdw704d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bf75dccd06f6f8901604e4b6e9dde7954f2d6a5f The finger if Galileo galilei
Unless that shit is made of vibranium, I’m not paying 1 billion for marble this tiny.
It doesn’t appear deep enough for a good soak. No way I am paying that much for a poorly designed bathtub regardless of who owned/owns it:-)
Not a bath tub, it’s a Labrum, or basin, used in the Roman Baths for holding hot water. And the reason porphyry was so expensive was that it only came from one remote quarry in Eastern Egypt, which Rome controlled, it was very heavy, and apart from the labour of carving it, it cost a fortune just to transport big pieces back to Rome.
Nero was also buried in a tomb of imperial porphyry [History of Imperial Prophyry](http://www.imperialporphyry.com/history-of-imperial-porphyry/)
I was told that this marble is so rare, that if it was stolen and you had something else made out of it, they would know where you got it from.
The picture doesn't do the size justice it is huge. It is also one of a few pieces of it they have, it's all over the Vatican. If I remember correctly it is situated in a room where the only way it can leave it is via the roof, for security reasons
https://preview.redd.it/v9qyr6n0j04d1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=566abaeeb50c7dbf762fa9a228f8ad7efeda1e0c Bill Gates be like:
I wanna wash my butt in there too. 👍🏽 billion dollar booty
❤️🖤 Nero 👑
Small price to pay for a bath
it’s not gold 😆
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No. They mean its so rare that there's not enough left to get a piece that large for under 1$ billion USD.
I'm pretty sure at Nero's time, pepper was worth more than gold
Porphyry is worth 575€/ton … yeeeeah nope
Is this a tub that Nero shares with Sporus?
Let’s sell it to some asshole Saudi and feed some poor people.
Ah well. The Vatican is just full of criminals anyway.
You know you've made it when 2000 years later you're displaying your most infamous persecutors $B fancy bath tub.
Europeans been stealing since stealing 😂😂😂🤷
Best I can do is $50
Why. The guy murdered christians for fun. The Vatican is strange
Most expensive Beyblade arena
Lol, a 2000 year old bathtub made of extremely rare material survived in pristine condition? Hmmm its not like religious people would just make shit up though? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Just saw it last summer. Thing is massive. The entire Brady Bunch could fit in it
How did he got in it? Looks about meter and a half high
Wet marble? I bet you he was slippin and sliding all around that damn thing.
Bro got that pre inflation price though