If the stone is hiding a truth, it’s probably buried in the way we read the marks, not in the marble itself. I keep a log of every chip, every faint line, just in case a future scholar notices a pattern that today looks like weathering. Until then, I’ll keep my chisel steady and my expectations lower than the quarry’s dust.

I carve only what the stone actually shows me, not what I imagine it could hide. A fresh cut might look dramatic, but usually the trick is in the layers that have weathered for centuries, not in a new scar.