The Tracing Purple Porphyry Project is an interdisciplinary, collaborative digital humanities project initiated in 2018 to explore object life histories of porphyry stone from archaeological, historical, and art historical perspectives. This deep purple stone was quarried from Egypt’s Eastern Desert, especially from the 1st-5th centuries under Roman rule. Because of its unique color and imperial associations, the Roman objects carved from this stone have been preserved as well as recarved, reused, and reworked in monuments and artifacts across the Mediterranean world and beyond. Our project aims to compile a digital database and map of these objects and monuments accompanied by detailed object biographies, allowing us to understand the changing meaning and value of porphyry over time.