MASONS’ MARKS ON THE RUINS OF ANCIENT ROME.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4910, 16 December 1876, Page 1 (Supplement)

MASONS’ MARKS ON THE RUINS OF ANCIENT ROME.

It is only in the last year or two that we have been able to trace out the exact line of the walls of ancient Rome, as built by the Kings, and this has been owing to the building of the new city and the excavations made for that purpose by the British and American Archaeological Society’s Exploration Fund. The marks found upon stone buildings of all dates in various parts of the world are those of the masons or builders, who were from the earliest times banded together in guilds, none being admitted without serving a specified time ; these again, according to their ability, were divided into different classes, consisting of Apprentices, Fellow Crafts, Master Masons, Mark Men and Architects, as distinct as the laborers, or men who carried the materials. The bands, guilds, or lodges were presided over by the most competent, forming a brotherhood, and as such existing down to the seventeenth century. Many of these lodges had charters and privileges granted to them by various kings and emperors ;: and because their art was taught only to the freeborn, they came to be called Free Masons, which name is retained to the present day by the Masonic Lodges, though they are not operative, but speculative, Masons. Charlemagne and Hugh Capot granted such charters ; also Pope Nicholas 111. 1278; in 1445, John de Medicis, Duke of Florence, became Grand Master of Free Masons ; and Pope Leo. X. was Grand Master of the Order; also Clement VIII. In our own country, St. Albans got a charter from the king and council for their protection ; in 986 King Athelstan likewise granted a charter, and became Grand Master at York. Edward 111. revised their constitution in 1358 ; in the reign of Henry VI. the House of Commons brought in an Act to prohibit their meetings, which passed, and was revoked in 14.50, when the king and many lords, gentlemen of his court, were made Masons. But to return to the marks. These were made by certain men of the old guild, called Mark men, whose duty it was to mark the stones with certain signs. Thus, in Masonic Lodges of the present day called Mark Lodges each member of the Lodge has a distinctive and peculiar symbol which no other member of that Lodge can take. Although on different parts of the early fortifications in Rome we find Masons’ marks often repeated on stones close together, yet, taking the existing remains which are at a distance from each other, we do not find the same marks repeated, with only one exception, a mark on the augur in the Tower of Servius Tullius, B. C. 580, corresponds with a mark on a Palatine, B. C. 758, and a curious trident mark here is also found on the wall of .Pompeii, near the Porta Romana. Many of the marks are used by the Free Masons of to-day.