Mosaic floor discovered in Israel on view at Penn Museum in Philadelphia

Bringing a mosaic floor ? one believed to have come from the home of a wealthy Roman living in the Eastern Roman Empire at about 300 CE ? into the Penn Museum in Philadelphia, was not an easy task.

?It was quite an elaborate undertaking,? said Dr. C. Brian Rose, curator and exhibition expert. ?The mosaic was in 30 different sections.?

Thirty sections were carefully brought in and put together like pieces of a puzzle by conservators from Israel.

?They had to air-lift the pieces through the giant front doors,? said Pam Kosty, public relations director at the museum.

Scaffolding was set, a crane was ready, and a section of South Street had to be closed as seven huge crates ? carrying the pieces of the 1,700-year-old Lod Moasic were lifted into the museum?s third floor gallery space ? so that visitors to the museum could get a close look at this ancient work of art ? on view now through May 12.

?I don?t know of anything on this level ever discovered in Israel before,? said Jacob Fisch, executive director of the Friends of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The Lod Mosaic was discovered in 1996 when construction workers were tasked with widening a road in Lod, Israel. Lod is very close to Tel Aviv, just minutes from Ben Gurion Airport, Fisch said. During construction, the workers found signs of a Roman mosaic pavement three feet below the modern ground surface. The floor turned out to be about 50 feet long by 27 feet wide.

And surprisingly, it was very well preserved.

?There?s no writing on it, no information on who commissioned it and it?s an incredible representation of the animal kingdom at the highest level,? said Fisch.

There are no human beings depicted on the Lod Mosaic.

?That?s odd. You?d expect to see a few human figures,? said Rose.

Instead, the mosaic features animals. On the edge, there are pictures of fish. A series of smaller squares and triangles depict birds, more fish and other animals, with ferocious wild animals ? a lion, an elephant, a giraffe, a rhinoceros, a tiger and a bull in the center.

What does the floor say about the man who owned it?

?Whoever this man was, he got rich selling wild animals,? said Rose. ?He was in the wild-animal export industry. It was his job to find the most exotic animals as possible to be used in gladiatorial games which wasn?t uncommon in those times.?

The animals depicted on the mosaic floor were well known to Romans since they were often used in gladiatorial games, where they either fought each other or humans.

The mosaic floor would?ve most likely been in an audience hall inside the aristocratic Roman?s house. He probably would?ve met with clients in that room, Rose said, and the floor was a visual sign of how he made his money.

Footprints of several workers involved in laying the floor 1,700 years ago ? which Rose estimated probably took about six months to complete ? were also found and preserved by conservators.

The house where the floor was discovered was destroyed in the 7th century and was left virtually untouched, Rose said.

?Most houses were built on top of an old home?s foundation,? he said. ?We were fortunate that didn?t happen here.?

The Penn Museum is the mosaic?s final stop in the U.S. before traveling to the Louvre in Paris and eventually heading to a new museum in Israel ? which is currently being built ? to showcase the discovery.

Contact Kristie Rearick at 856-845-3300 or krearick@southjerseymedia.com

Source: http://www.nj.com/indulge/index.ssf/2013/02/mosaic_floor_discovered_in_isr.html

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