At the quarries which were far from the sea, the masses were loaded at special carts, or other means of transportation, with lifting machines. From the quarry the masses were dragged until the platform, where they marble ready for the ships were gathered.
Following the topography of the ground, there are quarries where after the extraction, the mass falls towards the sea with its weight and then it's more light and it can be easily lift between two ships and be carried at it's destination.

*The aim of the source of the masses

At the most marbles, the engraved inscriptions gives us a lot of information for the identity of the masses and for their origins. We can find inscriptions at the passages, before we enter a quarry, with the name of the owner or the name of the responsible of the quarry.
At the Byzantine times this information were often written with minium at the passages, because there they were protected from the rains.
At the greek and roman quarries, a lot of times we see at the masses the letters PI. In greek it means "pelekeis" or "pelekizi", which means rough work, while in roman, PI means the latin word "probavit", that is that it was under the control of the person in charge.