Mosaics

Although never in widespread use in Egypt, mosaics of high quality were manufactured throughout the Hellenistic and Roman Periods, chiefly for locations in the city of Alexandria and its hinterland. Colorful decorative surfaces made of glazed faience tiles had been known from the earliest dynastic times in Egypt; the development of glass manufacture in the Eighteenth Dynasty introduced another decorative possibility which endured into the Roman Period as an Egyptian speciality - the use of shaped pieces of colored glass to create inlaid inscriptions and pictures: an outstanding example of the early Ptolemaic Period is the magnificent inner wooden coffin of Petosiris from the burial pit of his tomb at Tuna el-Gebel, inlaid with hieroglyphs of colored glass (Cairo JE 46592: Malek 2003: 318-19). The set of obsidian vessels inlaid with Egyptian ritual scenes and decorative motifs in colored stone (Naples 2006: 212-14), found in fragments within a box in the Roman villa at Stabiae in Campania, exemplifies the ongoing currency of another typically Egyptian product.

The survival of thousands of pieces of mosaic glass - small plaques with embedded motifs of both Greek and Pharaonic design - both in and outside Egypt demonstrates a parallel decorative inlay form generally credited with being an Alexandrian speciality (Goldstein 1979: 209-66; Schlick-Nolte 2004). The creation of complete decorative surfaces with figure scenes and patterns formed of large pieces of shaped glass, in the same manner as opus sectile pavements and wall-revetments in colored stone, may also have been a speciality emanating from the glass workshops of Alexandria, though the evidence for this potential export line is not clear; much of the discussion has centerd on the prefabricated glass panels of Egyptianizing decoration, apparently destined for an Iseum, that were found at the harbor-side of Kenchreai in Greece, still packed in their wooden crates when the town was overwhelmed by an earthquake in ad 365 or 375 (Ibrahim et al. 1976; Nauerth 2004).

In the course of the Ptolemaic Period both faience and glass were absorbed into the range of materials used to create tessellated mosaics (Guimier-Sorbets and Nenna 1995), but the concept itself was a purely foreign introduction to Egypt, and the distribution of surviving mosaics reflects the pattern of Greek settlement in Egypt and the introduction of specifically Greek forms of architecture. By far the largest number have been discovered in Alexandria and its immediate surroundings, followed by sites elsewhere in the Delta; amongst these, a group of mosaics which were found piecemeal in the early decades of the twentieth century and entered the collections of the Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria in the 1920s came from Thmuis (Tell Timai) in the eastern Delta, just south of the ancient nome capital, Mendes (Daszewski 1985: 146). It includes three of the most significant found in Egypt, evidently laid in buildings of some opulence in both Ptolemaic and Roman times, but nothing is known of their precise find-spots. Isolated finds have been made further south, in the Fayum, and at Hermopolis Magna and Antinoopolis, but in Upper Egypt only a solitary example has so far been found in situ, paving the circular tholos of a late Ptolemaic bath-building at Hu (Daszewski 1985: 170-1).

In the first volume of a projected Corpus (1985), Wiktor Daszewski catalogued 53 surviving mosaics of Hellenistic and early Roman date and subsequently estimated that the total of known mosaics in Egypt amounts to some 160, dating from the Ptolemaic Period to late antiquity (Daszewski 1996: 145); to these may be added a small number known from published references but rarely described in such detail that anything more than a find-spot and rough categorization of type can be recorded, and the total will surely continue to make modest growth with further discoveries in Alexandria. The majority of the extant examples are pavements, with perhaps two or three instances of wall mosaics, or fragments thereof, recognizable by their larger glass tesserae (Daszewski 1985: 130-2 no.23, from Kom el-Dikka, frigidarium of bath; Daszewski 1996: 147 with n. 20 on 154, from Thmuis, Alexandria GRM 20195).

Typical locations for mosaics are bath buildings of the Greek type, such as that discovered at Hu (above), and other settings connected with water, in both instances the impermeability of mosaic paving being of practical advantage. In domestic contexts, dining-rooms are the most favored location, as the prime reception area of the house, thus requiring the most impressive decor. In a Roman-style triclinium the function of the room is clear from the layout of the mosaics, with simpler designs used for the U-shaped formation where the three dining couches were placed, but a more elaborate central panel forming a T-shape with the adjacent threshold pavements, to greet the diners entering the room. Several examples have been uncovered in Roman houses of the first to third century ad at Kom el-Dikka, including the complex centered on the ‘‘Villa of the Birds,’’ where the triclinium features a central panel of opus sectile (Majcherek 2003; Kolataj et al. 2007: 28-34).

From the corpus of surviving mosaics some clear developmental lines and design preferences appear: a small group of Alexandrian pavements spanning the period 320 to 250 BC and including both geometric designs and figure scenes illustrates the transition from pebble to tessellated construction (Daszewski 1985: 101-10 nos. 1-4; McKenzie 2007: 67 fig. 97, 69). The emergence of polychrome mosaics of the highest technical achievement, created with minute pieces of stone (opus vermicula-tum) is typified by a small group of figure compositions dating to about 200-150 bc, which show subtle color effects which suggest that they are copies of paintings: they include the signed Sophilos mosaic from Thmuis, dated to about 200 BC. A square pavement, this has patterned borders framing the bust of a woman in military garb, crowned with the prow of a ship and holding a naval flagstaff, a personification of maritime power for whom a specific identification as Berenike II has been suggested (Daszewski 1985: 142-58 no. 38). The subject features again in another mosaic from the same site, dated perhaps a decade or so later (Daszewski 1985: 158-60 no. 39), but this time the format is circular and the surrounding ‘‘frame’’ consists of overlapping scales, a composition echoing the Medousa shield with the gorgon’s head at its center and a radiating pattern of colored scales or feathers around. Equally fine is the polychrome mosaic depicting a rather mournful dog seated beside an overturned metal flagon, a circular panel of opus vermiculatum which had been set within a plainer pavement (Guimier-Sorbets 1998b; Paris 1998: 230-31). It was discovered in 1993 during work on the site of the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina, and the find-spot - within the site of the ancient palace quarter - further emphasizes the apparent dominance of the royal workshops in the development of mosaic art in Alexandria.

Later pavements, well exemplified by those uncovered in houses at Kom el-Dikka dating from the late first century bc to the fourth ad, show a transition from polychrome mosaics to the widespread use of simpler black-and-white pavements, with repeat patterns based on geometric shapes as the predominant decoration. Similar pavements were found at various sites throughout the city in chance discoveries of earlier years: Tkaczow’s topographical survey (1993: 333 s. v. ‘‘Mosaic floors’’) supplies a useful compilation of sites. In general, elaborate figure scenes are not common on mosaics found in Egypt, the most substantial example being the inscribed pavement with mythological scenes found at Sheikh Zouede, near el-Arish, and dated to the late third century AD. Situated at the eastern margin of Egypt, this pavement has been seen to have a closer relationship to the style of Syrian and Palestinian mosaics than the Egyptian corpus (Daszewski 1996: 145 with nn. 9, 10 on 153). Two of the probable wall mosaics noted above depict mythological figures (Dionysos; and Alphios and Arethousa) and a very fragmentary pavement found at Antinoopolis has figures (Artemis and? Aphrodite, and scenes of bird-catching) in its central panels (Uggeri 1974). Birds and fish seen in relative isolation, however, seem to have been popular motifs, plausibly linked to the Alexandrian interest in natural history, which would have generated illustrated texts (Daszewski 2005). In the eponymous mosaic of the ‘‘Villa of the Birds’’ at Kom el-Dikka (plate 28), the motifofthe bird with vegetation seen in a number ofsingle panels elsewhere is repeated to carpet-like effect (Kolataj et al. 2007: 34-8), but they also include a reduced version of the most famous bird mosaic of all, the picture of the doves drinking from a metal bowl, originally created by Sosos of Pergamon (Pliny HN 36.184).

A common pavement design, especially for the central panels of dining-room pavements, was the circle within a square; and for the circle itself the favorite form was an imbricated shield which typically (but not invariably) had as its center-piece the head of the gorgon Medousa: as an apotropaic symbol the Gorgoneion, already well established in the Greek world, is ubiquitous in the funerary art of GraecoRoman Egypt, conferring protection on coffins, the painted doorways on loculus-slabs, and cinerary urns (Parlasca 1991: 116-20). Its apotropaic quality may have influenced its choice for mosaic center-pieces, too. Although shield mosaics are found all over the Mediterranean area, the number of Egyptian examples - seven to date, plus a few simplified variants where the shield is filled with triangles or cubes - is striking. They range in date from the mid-second century bc to the mid-second ad. The most recently discovered, from a house on the Diana theatre site in Alexandria, formed part of a triclinium pavement dated to ad 100-150, where it was surrounded by geometric designs (Guimier-Sorbets 1998a).

The shield, with its overlapping bicolored feathers or scales radiating or swirling over its surface, gave mosaicists an opportunity to introduce color and movement into their designs, sometimes echoing the depiction of overlapping feathers in Pharaonic art (Daszewski 1985: 64). Despite its currency everywhere in the Greek world, the motif would have had especial resonance in Egypt, where the scaly aegis of Zeus and Athena, to which the shield is related, distinguished one of the four statue types of the founder standing in Alexandria: the image of Alexander Aigiochos showed him cloaked in the aegis, often with the addition of the gorgon’s head, like a badge, and a border of snakes around the garment’s edge (Stewart 1993: 243-4, 246-51, 421-2, figs. 82-3). A number of small statuettes of this type have been found in Egypt, amongst them four from Ptolemais, and one found outside the temple of Luxor.

In both of the fine Ptolemaic mosaics from Thmuis described above, the central portrait is an emblema, a panel of finely detailed mosaic which was prefabricated in a terracotta tray or on a terracotta or stone plate. It was thus portable and could be taken from workshop to site where it would be laid as the center-piece in a pavement of less intricate design, executed in coarser tesserae; it was also adaptable, since it could be removed from one, perhaps worn, pavement and set into another. The medium of emblemata and the creation of exceptionally fine mosaic ‘‘pictures’’ are intrinsically linked in the Hellenistic world, and amongst several different production centers a particularly significant role for Alexandria in the manufacture and export of such panels has been mooted, supported by the identification of Alexandrian emblemata in distant locations such as Ostia (Guimier-Sorbets 2005: 573 n.17) and the appearance of subject-matter with Egyptian associations executed in mosaics of great finesse in Italy in the first century bc (at Pompeii, for example - Dunbabin 1999: 39-41). Whether or not there was an extensive export market for emblemata of Egyptian origin, their widespread local use (sometimes with clear signs of re-use) is reflected in the number surviving amongst the total of known mosaics - it currently stands at 17 (Daszewski 2005: 1147-52); amongst recent additions to this group are three emblemata set into the limestone pavement of the banqueting room above a hypo-geum at Marina el-Alamein, dated to the late first or early second century ad (Daszewski 2002: 79).