Non Nước

The Marble Mountains are five limestone and marble outcrops rising from the sand south of Đà Nẵng, full of caves and pagodas. Carvers settled at their foot several centuries ago, drawn by the stone, and made mortars, grinding stones, steles and tomb pieces as well as figures for the temples. Over time the village became the main centre of stone carving in the centre of Vietnam. Some families trace their trade back to carvers who came south from the stone country of Thanh Hóa, and the skills passed from father to son.

Quarrying the mountains themselves is now forbidden, and the stone comes from other provinces and abroad. The street has also changed: it is lined with large showrooms selling to tourists and to hotel and garden buyers, and much of the rough shaping is now done with power tools. Behind the showrooms, though, workshops still carve and finish by hand, and the best carvers are known for figures, lions and small vessels where the final surface is entirely chisel, rasp and polishing stone.

To tell good work, look at the parts that are hard to reach: the inside of a curled hand, the space between a lion’s teeth, the underside of a fold of cloth. Hand-finished stone has crisp edges there and an even polish. Machine-roughed pieces tend to be soft and slightly blurred in those places. Ask what the stone is and where it came from; good carvers will tell you.