We need to consider all aspects of a monument including the place of find as well as the part of the damage. In the Eastern Alps the stone monuments of the Romans faced a particularly difficult survival, because of the so-called “Völkerwanderung” and because of the Christianization. From Late Antiquity people carved metal of the joints out of the blocks and thus robbed the buildings their stability. After that, the church builder came and burned the high quality marble of the primary monuments to lime for walls, plastering and wall paintings. Usually, less expensive stones of the secondary monuments were used in the churches for gussets, buttresses, door and window frames etc. . This is why mainly stone monuments of the second and third level of quality remained, while we only have relatively few copies of the best quality ones – but we can admire these even more. In this inscription the elements of the relief, like the clothing and the tools clarify the meaning of the inscription and tell us what the profession of Nammonius was, which we could not know if only the text had survived.
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