Whoever owned the home graced by the Lod mosaic in 300 A.D., he doubtless held high rank in the city, perhaps a Roman official, perhaps a prosperous merchant. Saint George of dragon fame was born there of Greek parents (there had been a strong Greek presence in Lydda since Alexander’s conquest in 333 B.C.) in the second half of the 3rd century. The town was elevated to official city status by Septimius Severus in 200 A.D., garnering it the unwieldy title of Colonia Lucia Septimia Severa Diospolis. Shortly thereafter Hadrian renamed it Diospolis, city of gods, and the town’s population became increasingly Christianized. He besieged the town and when it fell, he executed much of its Jewish population. Lydda was hit again during the Second Jewish War (115-117 A.D.) by Lusius Quietus. Originally known as Lydda, Lod was destroyed during the First Jewish War by Cestius Gallus, the Roman proconsul of Syria, on his way to Jerusalem in 66 A.D. The mosaic was peeled off the floor, revealing a fascinating collection of ancient footprints left in the mortar underneath the tesserae, but excavations continue and the complete floorplan of the villa has yet to be determined. Funding was not available at that time to keep digging, so after a weekend of public display during which 30,000 people came to see the mosaic, the work was reburied until 2009 when a donation from the Shelby White and the Leon Levy Foundation allowed the Israel Antiquities Authority to re-excavate and conserve the mosaic. When the mosaic was first revealed during highway construction in 1996, emergency excavation unearthed a series of mosaic floors that measured a total of 50 by 27 feet. The collapse of the mud brick walls, which had once sported glorious frescoes in their own right, had the fortunate side-effect of preserving the floors. Nothing but the floor of the structure has survived, as far as we know. Pottery fragments and coins found above the floor date to the late 3rd and 4th centuries A.D., which places the likely date the mosaic was laid to around 300 A.D. All we know about the context from the archaeological investigation is that the mosaics decorated several large rooms, probably a series of receptions or audience halls, in a private house. Also unusual is the juxtaposition of hunting scenes and maritime activity. In all its vast complexity, there are no human figures or deities depicted, which is highly unusual for a work of this scope. A third panel between the two was made by a third master, not quite as skilled as the first two, and was probably installed last. The north panels, the ones that are on display, were made by one great master, the south panel by another. Archaeologists estimate that it took three years to make the entire floor, a painstaking process requiring exact planning of the positions of every one of the two million tesserae. It’s one of the most complete and largest Roman mosaics ever discovered. Elaborately braided geometric borders wind their way through and around each panel. The bottom panel is a single scene populated with dolphins, shells, fish of many species and two merchant ships, one with spread sails full of wind, the other with lowered mast and sails. Behind them a lion and lioness stand proudly on mountains overlooking water and a sea monster. An elephant takes on a giraffe and a rhinoceros while a tiger pulls on the tail of a … wildebeest? An aurochs? Some kind of horned animal. The middle panel has more of those animals in polyhedral frames with one large central tableau of exotic species in confrontational postures. The top panel features prey or food animals like birds, fish and game, some of them on their own, others shown in a deadly embrace with the lion, tiger, leopard and snake about to claim their lives. The panels on display fit together to form the largest, best-preserved and most intricate part of the 600-square-foot floor. After the Penn exhibit closes on May 12th, the mosaic panels will travel to the Louvre in Paris until August 19th, and then they go home to be reunited with the rest of the work. Since then it’s been to San Francisco, Chicago, and Columbus, Ohio. The mosaic began its tour of the US in New York City in 2010. Roman mosaic unearthed in Lod, Israel, in 1996, is now on display at Penn Museum in Philadelphia, the last chance for US audiences to see the masterpiece before it leaves the country. Three panels of the huge and breathtakingly beautiful 4th century A.D.
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