Marine Craft in Ancient Mosaics of the Levant 9781407308166, 9781407338040

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BAR S2249 2011

Marine Craft in Ancient Mosaics of the Levant

GROSSMANN

Eva Grossmann

MARINE CRAFT IN ANCIENT MOSAICS OF THE LEVANT

B A R

BAR International Series 2249 2011

Marine Craft in Ancient Mosaics of the Levant

Eva Grossmann

BAR International Series 2249 2011

Published in 2016 by BAR Publishing, Oxford BAR International Series 2249 Marine Craft in Ancient Mosaics of the Levant © E Grossmann and the Publisher 2011 The author's moral rights under the 1988 UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act are hereby expressly asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be copied, reproduced, stored, sold, distributed, scanned, saved in any form of digital format or transmitted in any form digitally, without the written permission of the Publisher. ISBN 9781407308166 paperback ISBN 9781407338040 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781407308166 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library BAR Publishing is the trading name of British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd. British Archaeological Reports was first incorporated in 1974 to publish the BAR Series, International and British. In 1992 Hadrian Books Ltd became part of the BAR group. This volume was originally published by Archaeopress in conjunction with British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd / Hadrian Books Ltd, the Series principal publisher, in 2011. This present volume is published by BAR Publishing, 2016.

BAR PUBLISHING BAR titles are available from:

E MAIL P HONE F AX

BAR Publishing 122 Banbury Rd, Oxford, OX2 7BP, UK [email protected] +44 (0)1865 310431 +44 (0)1865 316916 www.barpublishing.com

In memory of my son Michael, who thought up the idea for this book and with thanks to my husband Rudolf and son Rami for their patience, help, and support.

Acknowledgments First I have to give my thanks to Alexandra Shavit, Librarian at Tel Aviv University, who encouraged me to write this book and helped me to find material in libraries all over the world. Very Rev Fr Samuel Aghoyan, Superior of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, for explaining the meaning of the illustrations and mosaic in the chapel of St. Gregory and St. Vartan, reading, rereading, and correcting Chapter 9 A. Professor Christoph Börker, Erlanger University, Germany, for discussing and advising me on this work. Professor Michele Piccirillo – I met him several times in Jerusalem and he kindly discussed my work, adding suggestions and explaining the importance of various sites, not only sites which he excavated or worked on. He also made available to me important material, literature as well as photographs. Professor Michal Artzy from Haifa University, for making photographs available of Berenike. Dr. Yuda Dagan, Israel Antiquities Authority, for his patience and helping to find contacts and material. Arieh Rochman-Halperin, archaeologist, Head of Archives, the Israel Antiquities Authority, Rockefeller Museum, Jerusalem. Dr. Suzanne Anderson, Department of Antiquities, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Dr. Susan Walker, Keeper of Antiquities, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Dr. Helen Whitehouse, Curator of the Egyptian collection, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Avshalom Zemer, Curator of the National Maritime Museum Haifa. Sa’ar Nudel, archaeologist/geologist, Maritime Museum Haifa. Dr. Martin Dennert, for sending me important bibliographical information, including the Papyrus P. Kairo Zenon 599665. Dr. Kurt Gschwantler, Direktor der Antikensammlung, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien. Professor Dr. Hermann Nationalbiliothek, Vienna.

Harrauer,

Direktor,

Papyrussamlung,

Oestereichische

Avner Hillmann, Haifa University. Professor Roger Ling, University of Manchester. Professor Dr Michael Donderer, Erlangen University, Germany, for sending me Gallazzi’s (et al.) article about mosaic pattern-books in Archiv für Papyrusforschung. Professor Jean Balty, for sending me a picture of the mosaic floor from the Triclinium in Apamea. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Sean Kingsley, who supported, helped and advised me, perused, commented and corrected with patience the whole work. The book would never have been published without his help.

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Contents 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 2. Turkey: Antioch and Daphne ............................................................................................. 6 A. Antioch and Daphne ...................................................................................................... 6 B. The House of Menander ................................................................................................ 6 C. The House of Okeanos and Thetis, Antioch .................................................................. 8 D. Yakto Complex ..............................................................................................................9 3. Syria: Rayân, Apamea, and Sorân and Shahba-Philippopolis .......................................... 11 A. Rayân ..........................................................................................................................11 B. Apamea........................................................................................................................13 C. Sorân, Khirbet Cheikh Messaoud ............................................................................... 15 D. Shahba-Philippopolis.................................................................................................. 18 4. Lebanon: Khaldé-Choueifat ............................................................................................. 19 A. Khaldé-Choueifat ........................................................................................................ 19 5. Israel: Migdal Nunia, Lod, Beth Shean, Beth Guvrin, Beth Loya and Haditha ............... 23 A. Migdal Nunia .............................................................................................................. 23 B. The Lod Villa Mosaic .................................................................................................. 27 C. The House of Kyrios Leontis, Beth Shean ................................................................... 31 D. The Church of Mahat-el-Aradi, Beth Guvrin .............................................................. 35 E. Beth Loya ....................................................................................................................38 F. The Haditha Mosaic .................................................................................................... 40 6. Jordan: the Madaba Mosaic Map, Umm al-Rasas and Zay al-Gharby ............................. 42 A. The Madaba Mosaic Map ........................................................................................... 42 B. The Church of St. Stephen, Umm al-Rasas (Kastron Mefa’a) ..................................... 44 C. The Church of the Priest Wa’il, Umm al-Rasas .......................................................... 47 D. The Church of the Martyrs Lot and Procopius ........................................................... 49 E. The Church of Zay al-Gharby ..................................................................................... 51

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7. Egypt: Mosaics of Berenike, Sophilos and Thmuis ......................................................... 54 A. ‘Berenike A’ Mosaic, Sophilos .................................................................................... 54 B. ‘Berenike A’ Mosaic, Thumis ...................................................................................... 56 8. Unprovenanced Mosaics .................................................................................................. 57 A. Mosaic with a Syriac Inscription and Boat ................................................................. 57 B. A Nilotic Scene ............................................................................................................58 9. Classical Legacy in the 20th Century: Noah’s Ark in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Church of St. Stephen ........................................................................................ 60 A. The Chapel of St. Gregory, the Curch of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem ................... 60 B. The Church of St. Stephen, Bet Gemal ........................................................................ 63 10. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 66 Index .................................................................................................................................... 70 Glossary ............................................................................................................................... 72 Bibliography......................................................................................................................... 73

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List of Figures Fig. 1. Map of places discussed in this book .......................................................................... 2 Fig. 2. An example of opus signinum, detail of a pavement at Kerkouane, Tunisia, 3rd century BC................................................................................................................... 3 Fig. 3. The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina, Italy, 2nd century BC .................................................. 3 Fig. 4. The alleys in the Summer Palace/Beijing built by Emperor Yongyan, Qing Dynasty 1796-1820.................................................................................................. 5 Fig. 5. Floor at the monastery in Panoramitis, on the island of Symi in Greece, 20th century ....................................................................................................................... 5 Fig. 6. Daphne, Turkey, 2-3rd century AD .............................................................................. 7 Fig. 7. The House of Menander, Daphne, Turkey, 2-3rd century AD ..................................... 7 Fig. 8. Marine craft on a mosaic, the House of Menander, Daphne, 2-3rd century AD ............................................................................................................... 8 Fig. 9. Mosaic from Utica, Bardo Museum, Tunis, 3rd century AD ....................................... 8 Fig. 10. The ‘Musculus’ ship from the floor mosaic in Althiburus ........................................ 8 Fig. 11. Mosaic depicting Okeanus and Thetis, Antioch, 5th century AD .............................. 9 Fig. 12. Room M 37 A.O. 73927 ........................................................................................... 9 Fig. 13. Mosaic of Thetis, Yakto, Turkey, 5th century AD ................................................... 10 Fig. 14. Mosaic of Thetis, Yakto, Turkey, 5th century AD ................................................... 10 Fig. 15. The Church, Rayân, Syria, 5th century AD ............................................................. 12 Fig. 16. Central mosaic carpet, Rayân Syria, 5th century AD............................................... 13 Fig. 17. Two medallions depicting ships, Rayân, Syria, 5th century AD.............................. 13 Fig. 18. Mosaic floor from the Triclinium Apamea, Syria, 4th century AD ......................... 14 Fig. 19. Detail of the boat on the Triclinium mosaic at Apamea, Syria, 4th century AD ................................................................................................................ 14 Fig. 20. Plan of the preserved mosaics in the basilica at Khirbet Cheikh Messaoud, Sorân, Syria, Syria, AD 432 ......................................................................... 15 Fig. 21. Mosaic carpet near the apse at Khirbet Cheikh Messaoud Sorân, Syria, AD 432 ................................................................................................................. 16 Fig. 22. Sailing vessel from the nave at Khirbet Cheikh Messaoud, Sorân, Syria, AD 432 ................................................................................................................. 16 Fig. 23. Detail of the sailing boat from the southern aisle at Khirbet Cheikh Messaoud Sorân, Syria, AD 432...................................................................................................... 16 v

Fig. 24. The boat from the intercolumnar mosaic at Khirbet Cheikh Messaoud, Sorân, Syria, AD 432...................................................................................................... 16 Fig. 25. Comparison of the two intercolumnar mosaic fragments, at Khirbet Cheikh Messaoud Sorân, Syria, 5th century AD .......................................................................... 17 Fig. 26. A merchant vessel carrying amphorae; Apamea, Syria. 4th-5th century AD............ 17 Fig. 27. Tethys, Shahba, Syria, 4th century AD .................................................................... 18 Fig. 28. Tethys. Detail of the border. Boat A, Shahba, Syria, 4th century AD ..................... 18 Fig. 29. Tethys. Detail of the border. Boat B, Shahba, Syria, 4th century AD...................... 18 Fig. 30. Plan of the Church of Khaldé-Choueifat, Lebanon, 5th century AD ....................... 20 Fig. 31. Drawing of the entrance carpet, Khaldé-Choueifat, Lebanon, 5th century AD ................................................................................................................ 21 Fig. 32. Drawing of the entrance carpet, detail Khaldé-Choueifat, Lebanon, 5th century AD ................................................................................................................ 21 Fig. 33. The north-eastern corner viewed from the entrance carpet to the nave Khaldé-Choueifat, Lebanon, 5th century AD .................................................................. 21 Fig. 34. The sailing vessel (in the square), Khaldé-Choueifat, Lebanon, 5th century ....................................................................................................................... 21 Fig. 35. The sailing vessel (in the triangle) Khaldé-Choueifat, Lebanon, 5th century AD ................................................................................................................ 21 Fig. 36. The Urban Villa, Migdal Nunia, Israel, 1st century AD .......................................... 24 Fig. 37. The mosaic floor, Migdal Nunia Israel, 1st century AD .......................................... 25 Fig. 38. The Migdal mosaic boat.......................................................................................... 25 Fig. 39. Ship from the mosaic floor of Foro delle Corporationi, Ostia, Italy, 2nd century AD ................................................................................................................ 25 Fig. 40. Ship from the mosaic floor of Foro delle Corporationi, Ostia, Italy, 2nd century AD ................................................................................................................ 25 Fig. 41. Ships, mosaic floor, Althiburus, Tunisia ................................................................. 26 Fig. 42. Fishing scene, a Nilotic floor from Sousse, Roman period ..................................... 26 Fig. 43. Venus sitting on a throne Carthage, Tunisia, 4th century AD .................................. 26 Fig. 44. Mosaic carpet viewed from the North, Lod, Israel, 3rd century AD ........................ 27 Fig. 45. Mosaic with two merchant ships Lod, 3rd century AD............................................ 28 Fig. 46. Reconstruction of the destroyed merchant ship A, Lod, 3rd century AD ................ 28 Fig. 47. Reconstructed ship Amsterdam: shrouds with pulleys ............................................ 29 Fig. 48. Mosaic depicting a ship with a tilted mast and a decorated plank on the bow; from Sousse, Tunisia, 3rd century AD ......................................................... 29 Fig. 49. Drawing of a sailing boat from the Church of St. Vartan in the Church of The Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem ............................................................... 29 Fig. 50. Sarcophagus, Sidon, Lebanon, Roman period ........................................................ 30 Fig. 51. Mosaic depicting Theseus and the Labyrinth, 3rd century AD ................................ 30 Fig. 52. Theseus on a boat with Ariadne .............................................................................. 30 Fig. 53. The House of Kyrios Leontis, Beth Shean, Israel, 5th century AD ......................... 32 Fig. 54. Mosaic floor in the House of Kyrios Leontis, Beth Shean, Israel, 5th century AD ................................................................................................................ 33 Fig. 55. ‘Odysseus and the Sirens’, The House of Kyrios Leontis, Beth Shean, Israel, 5th century AD ..................................................................................................... 33 Fig. 56. Mosaic showing the sailing vessel, Beth Shean, Israel, 5th century AD.................. 33 vi

Fig. 57. Nile motif, Beth Shean ............................................................................................ 34 Fig. 58. Boat from the Nilotic scene, Beth Shean, Israel, 5th century AD ............................ 34 Fig. 59. The Church of Mahat-el-Aradi Beth Guvrin, Israel, 6th century AD ...................... 36 Fig. 60. Mosaic floor, southern aisle, Beth Guvrin, Israel, 6th century AD .......................... 36 Fig. 61. The medallion with the boat, southern aisle, Beth Guvrin, Israel, 6th century AD ................................................................................................................ 37 Fig. 62. The northern aisle, Beth Guvrin, Israel, 6th century AD ......................................... 37 Fig. 63. The octagon in the northern aisle, Beth Guvrin, Israel, 6th century AD .................. 38 Fig. 64. Fishing scene, detailing netting from a boat, Lepcis Magna, Roman period Libya. ...................................................................................................... 38 Fig. 65. Plan of the Church complex, Beth Loya, Israel, AD 500 ........................................ 39 Fig. 66. Ship from the Church, Beth Loya, Israel, AD 500 .................................................. 39 Fig. 67. Ship ‘Corbita’ from the floor mosaic in Althiburus................................................ 40 Fig. 68. Mosaic, Haditha, Israel, 6th century AD .................................................................. 40 Fig. 69. Detail of ship, Haditha, Israel, 6th century AD ........................................................ 41 Fig. 70. North-east chapel, Qasr-el- Libia, Libya, Roman period ........................................ 41 Fig. 71. Madaba Map mosaic, Jordan, 6th century AD ......................................................... 43 Fig. 72. Madaba mosaic – two river boats on the River, Jordan, 6th century AD ................. 43 Fig. 73. Madaba mosaic – two sailing vessels on the Dead Sea, Jordan, 6th century AD ................................................................................................................ 44 Fig. 74. Church complex, Umm al-Rasas, Jordan 8th century AD ....................................... 45 Fig. 75. Mosaic floor, The Church of St. Stephen, Umm al-Rasas, Jordan, 8th century AD ................................................................................................................ 45 Fig. 76. Detail of boat, The Church of St. Stephen, Umm al-Rasas, Jordan, 8th century AD ................................................................................................................ 46 Fig. 77. Fishing scene from the Bardo Museum, Tunis, Roman period ............................... 46 Fig. 78. An empty vessel, Roman graffito from Münsingen and Hölstein 2nd half of the 2nd century AD...................................................................................................... 47 Fig. 79. Tombstone relief fragment, Karlsruhe, Germany, Roman Period........................... 47 Fig. 80. The Church of the Priest Wa’il Jordan, Umm al-Rasas, Jordan, 5th century AD ................................................................................................................ 48 Fig. 81. Western panel, Church of the Priest Wa’il, Umm al- Rasas, Jordan, 5th century AD ................................................................................................................ 48 Fig. 82. Boat, Church of Priest Wa’il, Umm al- Rasas, Jordan, 5th century AD .................. 49 Fig. 83. Second boat, Church of Priest Wa’il, Umm al- Rasas, Jordan, 5th century AD ................................................................................................................ 49 Fig. 84. Church of the Holy Martyrs Lot and Procopios, Mount Nebo, Jordan, 6th century AD ................................................................................................................ 50 Fig. 85. Nilotic motif, The Church of the Holy Martyrs Lot and Procopios, Mount Nebo, Jordan, 6th century AD.............................................................................. 50 Fig. 86. The Fishermen and the sailor. The Church of the Holy Martyrs Lot and Procopios, Mount Nebo, Jordan, 6th century AD ..................................................... 50 Fig. 87. The Fishermen, The Church of the Holy Martyrs Lot and Procopius, Mount Nebo, Jordan, 6th century AD.............................................................................. 51 Fig. 88. The boat. The Church of the Holy Martyrs Lot and Procopius, Mount Nebo, Jordan, 6th century AD.............................................................................. 51

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Fig. 89. The Church of Zay al-Gharby, Jordan, 5th-6th century AD ..................................... 52 Fig. 90. Sailing vessel, Zay al-Gharby, Jordan, 5th-6th century AD ...................................... 52 Fig. 91. Second vessel, Zay al-Gharby, Jordan, 5th-6th century AD ..................................... 52 Fig. 92. Mosaic depicting Berenike of Sophilos, Egypt, 3th century BC .............................. 54 Fig. 93. Mosaic depicting Berenike’s headdress – the front part of a warship, Egypt, 3rd century BC ..................................................................................................... 55 Fig. 94. Bronze ram, discovered at Atlit, Israel, dating to the 2nd century BC ..................... 55 Fig. 95. Berenike from Thumis, second Example, 3th century BC ....................................... 56 Fig. 96. Mosaic depicting Berenike’s headdress – the front part of a warship, Egypt, 3th century BC ..................................................................................................... 56 Fig. 97. Mosaic depicting a coracle...................................................................................... 57 Fig. 98. Drawing of a coracle ............................................................................................... 57 Fig. 99. Ancient British coracle ........................................................................................... 57 Fig. 100. Nilotic scene on mosaic, El Amarna, Egypt, 1st century BC ................................. 58 Fig. 101. Drawing of the Nilotic scene on mosaic, El Amarna, Egypt, 1st century BC ................................................................................................................. 58 Fig. 102. Modern reed boats on Lake Titicaca..................................................................... 59 Fig. 103. A reed boat from Lepcis Magna, Libya, Roman period ........................................ 59 Fig. 104. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, The Chapels of St. Gregory, St. Helen and St. Vartan, Jerusalem, Israel ..................................................................... 61 Fig. 105. The Chapel of St. Gregory, Jerusalem, Israel, 20th century................................... 61 Fig. 106. The mosaic carpet in the Chancel, Chapel of St. Gregory, Jerusalem 20th century .................................................................................................... 62 Fig. 107. The monasteries depicted on the large carpet in the Chapel of St. Gregory, Jerusalem 20th century .................................................................................................... 62 Fig. 108. The Church of Etchmiadzin, Yerevan, Armenia, 4th century AD ......................... 63 Fig. 109. A pair of peacocks depicted in the frame of the large carpet in the Chapel of St. Gregory, Jerusalem ......................................................................... 63 Fig. 110. Noah’s Ark, Church of St. Gregory, Jerusalem .................................................... 63 Fig. 111. Plan of the miqveh and the nearby Byzantine church, Bet Gemal, Israel, 20th century .......................................................................................................... 64 Fig. 112. Mosaic over the apse in the Church of St. Stephen, Bet Gemal, Israel ................. 64 Fig. 113. Hansa Cog as used by the Crusaders in the Medieval period................................ 65 Fig. 114. Replica of a cog in the harbour of Malmö/Sweden ............................................... 65 Fig. 115. Hansa Cog (13th to 17th century AD) used also by the Crusaders ......................... 65

List of Tables Table 1. Summary of maritime motifs on mosaics from southern Turkey, Syria and Lebanon .......................................................................................................................... 67 Table 2. Summary of maritime motifs on ancient mosaics from Israel ................................ 67 Table 3. Summary of maritime motifs on ancient mosaics from Jordan .............................. 68 Table 4. Summary of maritime motifs on ancient mosaics from Egypt, unprovenaced floors, and modern mosaics from Israel .................................................. 68

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1 INTRODUCTION Bronze Age, human subjects and landscapes were being naturalistically portrayed in wall frescoes, notably in houses of deistic character and palaces, typified by the pre-17th century BC Akrotiri on Santorini. In the Phoenician city of Carthage (modern Tunis in Tunisia) the classical proto-mosaic mortared pavements saw widespread use in 4th century BC contexts, containing aggregates of terracotta with stones or tesserae inserted, the so-called opus signinum (Fig. 2).

Mosaic floors and walls have an enormous heritage, spanning centuries and civilizations. The medium was common in countries ruled by the Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines from the 4th century BC into the medieval period. They were crafted out of a range of materials, mostly stone cubes, with their size and colours differing according to time, place and demand. The particular patience needed for setting thousands of small stones into a pattern required considerable investment in labour, time and money.

Delicate frescoes, however, were not practical for the decoration of palace floors and luxury villa floors, due to the rapid damage that would be caused by wear and humidity. The durability of stone in floor and later in wall mosaics however, was perfectly appropriate for functional durability. Coloured cubes were obtained from natural stone or terracotta and could be laid into extremely sensitive works of art. For finer details, richer tones of red, green, and blue were achieved by using glass, but due to its liability to shatter and higher price, were only utilized in the most high-status mosaics, sometimes set into floors but most commonly placed on walls (for example, the Late Roman villa of Lod and the lotus flowers in the Haditha mosaic in Chapter 5B and 5F).

Usually ancient mosaics were made from tesserae (cubes) measuring 1 sq. centimeter on average, meaning that an astonishing 10,000 cubes were needed to complete an area covering 1 sq. metre. Complicated details, such as faces, were composed from much smaller stones (Figs. 55, 58, 88). Social, political or artistic messages could of course be achieved by using other media, including wall painting and sculpture, but mosaics were especially popular in antiquity because of their beauty, durability, scale and thus immediate visual impact upon entering a space, which could not be achieved by any other decorative format. The oldest known examples of mosaic pavements, perhaps indicative of the first emergence of this art form, were floors made of small rounded pebbles set in gardens dedicated to the muses. These gardens were called musea, hence musivum opus, in abridged form musivum, becoming the modern ‘mosaic’ in translation (Dauphin, 1997: 1-32).

The most frequently used colours, and the easiest to obtain, were black, grey, and whites (cf. Union Square in Ostia, Italy: Figs. 39, 40). At the other end of the scale of art, in the Roman West and Byzantine Near East, floors and walls surrounding wine, oil, and water installations were often covered with crude tessellated floors composed of large white stone cubes, not to produce an artistic pattern, but simply to make them functional, watertight and on floors of wine presses to facilitate grip during the treading of grapes.

The visual concept of embellishing dwellings is of course thousands of years old. Walls decorated with hand impressions, engravings, and frescoes emerged during the Upper Palaeolithic period (30,000 BP) in caves all over the world, from France and Spain to Australia (Clottes and Courtin, 1996; Donaldson and Kenneally, 2005). With progress in dwelling development and new realisations of space and religious thought during the Neolithic period, art reached a new conceptual plain (Lewis-Williams and Pearce, 2005). By the Middle

Wall mosaics (musivum) were more expensive than floor mosaics (the opus tessellatum) as they were more timeconsuming to produce due to the use of finer materials and undoubtedly also due to the greater expense of securing highly specialized artisans. Musivum were used 1

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Fig. 1. Map of places discussed in this book

nature, flora, fauna, ships, mythology, river life (especially along the Nile) and often incorporated inscriptions and dedications. The fascination in Nilotic motifs dates back to the age of Alexander the Great (356323 BC), whose empire-building military expeditions were accompanied by scientists and artists charged with documenting the (variety) nature of different civilizations (Avi Yona and Shatzman, 1975: 31), over 2,000 years before Napoleon Bonaparte imitated this act during his invasion of Egypt. Nilotic motifs were based on Hellenistic period depictions from the Ptolemaic world and usually included lotus/papyrus flowers, waterfowl, ducks, and cows (sometimes struggling with a water snake, crocodile or other predators), fishermen, hunters, personifications of the Nile god, who is occasionally

mostly in palaces and later in Early Christian churches, which incorporated a large proportion of golden cubes to generate a deeper and richer impression on visitors. The techniques of producing mosaic floors were outlined in the 1st century BC by the Roman architect Vitruvius (On Architecture, VII.1.3-4), who described how to prepare the base for the mosaic but did not describe how the stone cubes were made and how the schemes were laid out. Vitruvius explained that after the mosaic cubes were laid, the surfaces needed to be smoothed, cleaned and polished. The subjects for mosaic designs were taken from everyday life: professions, human figures and portraits, 2

INTRODUCTION

Palestrina (Fig. 3), which originally decorated the floor of an apse in the archbishop’s Palace (Meyboom, 1995). Another favourite subject was of course Greek and Roman mythology, for example Odysseus and the Sirens, Theseus in the labyrinth, and Dionysus and the pirates. Geometric patterns were also abundant for borders of square carpets, emblemata, and rosettes placed in the centre of a floor. Pictures in triclinia (private dining rooms) were typically displayed so that the observer could walk around the mosaic carpet and view the various pictures comfortably from suitable angles and the narrative could be easily followed. A typical example from the Western provinces is the 2nd century AD Aeneid Mosaic of Low Ham, Somerset, United Kingdom, now in Taunton Castle (Ling, 1998: 113, fig. 81). A well-known example in the East is the 3rd century AD Dionysiac floor in the Roman villa at Sepphoris in northern Israel (Talgam and Weiss, 2003). Medallions with flowers, fruits, birds, and boats were repeatedly used, such as the ‘cushion’-patterned mosaic from La Chebba, Tunisia, c. AD 200.

Fig. 2. An example of opus signinum, detail of a pavement at Kerkouane, Tunisia, 3rd century BC (Ling, 1998, 34, fig. 20; Fantar et all, 1994, 18)

portrayed holding a cornucopia and often incorporating geography-related inscriptions, such as ‘Alexandria’, ‘Egypt’ or other places, and the mosaicist’s name.

In the Byzantine period mosaics found new freedom of expression in churches. Ceilings, walls, and apses were decorated with icons of saints and scenes from Biblical stories. In the Early Byzantine period (AD 324-650), mosaicists glamourised their depictions with a new medium, gold and silver stones were used to create more grandiose pictures to impress worshippers and convey a sense of the greatness of God. The Justinianic mosaics on the walls of the Church of St. Vitale in Ravenna are particularly fine examples.

This subject matter became a long-term ‘bestseller’ and expanded out of Egypt to appear in edifices of various types, including Roman villas, bath-houses, churches, and Jewish houses. Examples within Israel include the House of Leontis in Beth Shean, Beth Guvrin, Haditha, Tabhga, the House of the Nile Festival at Sepphoris, and many other sites. Further afield in the West, one of the most impressive depictions of Nilotic motifs is the mosaic at

Fig. 3. The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina, Italy, 2nd century BC (Meyboom, 1995, fig. 6) 3

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

• The pictor musivarius: the artist who executed the opus musivum, or wall mosaic, on vaults and domes. He had great knowledge of the technical properties of the materials used in order to obtain particular effects.

It has long been recognized that highly similar and often identical mosaic patterns and subjects were used in different places during the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods. These designs and themes, varying in dimensions, colours, and proportions, have been discovered in far-flung regions (Figs. 68, 70). Three texts contained in the 3rd century BC Zenon Papyrus 59665 refer to mosaics in Egypt and confirm the existence of ‘guides’ for artists (Daszewski, 1985: 6-14). The first text refers to a pattern sent from Alexandria to serve as a guide for laying a mosaic floor in an apparently royal villa in Philadelphia in the Fayum. The second source refers to mosaics of foreign manufacture imported to Egypt. The third describes a ship called the Syracusia, which was later renamed Alexandris, which was adorned with Alexandrian tesserae.

• The pictor tessellarius: the artist who executed the opus tessellatum or floor mosaic (Smith, 1875). Reference should also be made to the sadder dimension of mosaics: their destruction by religious iconoclasts during the Byzantine and Early Islamic periods. The decree of Emperor Leo III in AD 726 forbade the use of images of people and animals, under the tenet that “God is the only Creator”. The decree applied mostly to churches. A similar phenomenon, termed ‘iconophobia’ occurred in AD 721 during the reign of the Umayyad Caliph Yazid II, when many contemporary mosaics were badly defaced. Often can be seen pastoral scenes where faces were hammered out and the space immediately repaired, using the same tesserae laid out randomly thus blurring the facial features. Examples are abundant, such as the Madaba mosaic in Jordan, where the features of the fishermen in a boat on the Dead Sea are defaced (Fig. 73), in the two medallions from Beth Guvrin (Figs. 61, 63) and the mosaic of Beth Loya (Fig. 66), to name but a few. Those that survived owe their fate to former concealment under later structures, before this vandalism was carried out.

In the later part of the 20th century a privately owned papyrus (250 cm long, 32.5 cm wide) depicting drawings of animals, parts of human figures and a map, came to the attention of the academic community. The owner gave permission to Claudio Gallazzi and Bärbel Kramer to study the papyrus, which dates to the Late Hellenistic period and may be interpreted as a long-lost pattern books (Gallazzi and Kramer, 1998: 189-208; Donderer, 2005: 59-68). Dauphin (1978) has argued that travelling craftsmen brought pictures of fauna and flora with them from faraway countries, which served as the inspiration for pattern books. Timotheus of Gaza, for instance, (Dauphin, 1978: 400-423) recorded that two giraffes and an elephant from India were brought through Eilat (Aila) to Constantinople for the Emperor Anastasius I (r. AD 491-518). According to the chronicle of Marcellius, the animals arrived at their destination in AD 496.

Many methodologies for the study of ancient floor mosaics co-exist, based on ypically stylistic approaches, which focus on the diffusion of style within and between regions (Dauphin, 1976: 113-149). Other common methods are exegetic, concentrating on the meaning of an artistic depiction (Dauphin, 1978: 10-34; Merrony, 1998: 481-482) or socio-economic approaches, as applied most recently to the Early Byzantine mosaics of the Levant (Merrony, 2000; 2003: 25-28).

Dauphin proposes that these animals were sketched by one or more mosaicists in Gaza, Palestine on their way north, which became part of the subject matter for local pattern books years later: “…despite the use of pattern and artistic license, observation of nature in the case of depiction of some animals and birds, which figured in the fills was not totally disregarded… It is possible to recognize ‘regional groupings’ and perhaps identify schools, workshops and artisans from the way in which they combine various characteristics. Variations in pattern, technique and stylistic idiosyncrasies, all contribute in the identification both of workshops and artisans...” (Dauphin, 1978: 400-423).

The idea for this book arose when I was called to observe excavations at Lod in Israel in 1996 (Chapter 5B), where road construction had exposed three stunning Late Roman mosaic panels from a villa site. The beauty of colours, designs, and aesthetics of the composition were fascinating and seemingly unprecedented in their freshness. The diversity of so many kind of fishes reminded me of diving in the Red Sea. What especially fascinated me was the depiction of the two of sailing vessels, one partly damaged, which offered realistic visual insights into details of ancient ship construction (cf Haddad and Avissar, 2003).

The assignments of different artists and craftsmen involved in laying mosaic carpets are known from various texts and are often mentioned in mosaic inscriptions and dedications. The various functions were:

The subject of this book was inspired by the splendour and variety of numerous mosaic showing boats and ships from antiquity. Because of the large number of floors discovered, it was essential to limit the scope of this book geographically, for which reason we focus on the Eastern Mediterranean, from southern Turkey to Egypt and including Syria, Israel, and Jordan. The work includes both a catalogue of vessels found on mosaics, but also discusses comparative mosaics from across the ancient world, with the objective of leading to an understanding of their meaning and, not less importantly, to learn from

• The pictor imaginarius: the ‘cartoon’ master, who traced the initial mosaic design and also suggested the necessary colours. • The pictor parietarius: the artist who copied the design from the original sketch onto a wall or floor and enlarged or reduced the figures to fit the area of the mosaic. He also established the space between the figures that he matched to the form and size of the wall or floor to be covered. 4

INTRODUCTION

them the features of daily life and workmanship in antiquity. The samples examined consists of 38 individual depictions of ships and boats dating between the 1st century AD and the 20th century. Relatively few ancient boats and ships have been excavated intact, the exception perhaps being the Viking ship-burials, such as Gokstad and Oseberg near Oslo. In most cases archaeologists find only the keel and part of the lower hull with frames. Mostly a pile of ballast stones and cargo protruding through the sand cover of the seabed, is all that signifies and reveals an ancient shipwreck. For instance also from the Roman wreck, discovered at La Madrague de Giens off France, dated to the 1st century AD, remained only the hull and the cargo, mostly amphorae. The ship was nearly 40 metres long lying at 18-20 metres depth. Patrice Pomey found a similarity of the Giens ship hull with a later representation of a ship on a Tunisian mosaic (Tchernia, 1987).

Fig. 4. The alleys in the Summer Palace/Beijing built by Emperor Yongyan, Qing Dynasty 1796-1820

Even where well-preserved hulls are encountered, major sections of the upper decks of ancient ships do not survive for analysis – remains above the turn-of-the-bilge are unusual. This is where realistic mosaic depictions come to the fore, along with representations on stone reliefs, Greek and Roman pottery, frescoes, coins and in fragmentary texts, all of which are crucial sources for studying ancient ship construction. Other important sources include present-day traditional boat builders in fishing villages around the Mediterranean coast, who do not use plans, but work according to knowledge passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. The medium of mosaic decreased in the Early Modern era. The technique’s widespread popularity is reflected by its adoption in China, where beautiful examples graced the alleys of the Summer Palace of Beijing built by the Emperor Yongyan of the Qing Dynasty (r. 1796-1820) (Fig. 4). Even today the art of mosaic can be found in use in the Mediterranean region, decorating garden paths and yards (Fig. 5), for instance still down the side-streets of Tunis, for purely artistic purposes. Its legacy lives with us still. Fig. 5. Floor at the monastery in Panoramitis, on the island of Symi in Greece, 20th century

5

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

2 TURKEY: ANTIOCH AND DAPHNE north. Its characteristically Roman design incorporated broad streets laid out on a grid plan, public spaces (forums), theatres, temples, and a library. In 64 BC the Romans conquered the town and made it the capital of the Province of Syria. Aurelian (r. AD 214-275) built several magnificent structures and Constantine II (r. AD 337-361) constructed an octagonal cathedral at Antioch, which was severely damaged by the earthquake of AD 526. Many churches were also constructed here in the Early Byzantine period and the town became an especially revered Christian centre of worship: here Peter and Paul converted gentiles, the Gospel of Matthew was written, and the followers of Christ were first called Christians. Because of its strategic location Antioch remained an important international centre. The city also had a large Jewish quarter.

A. ANTIOCH AND DAPHNE Antioch, modern Antakya, is located in Turkey, north of the Syrian border, 15 km east of the Mediterranean on the River Orontes. In antiquity it was known as Antioch on the Orontes because several other towns shared this same name. Following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC his generals competed in a long struggle for his empire, in which Seleucus I Nicator won. Seleucus I founded the Seleucid Empire and established Antioch as its capital, which he named Antiochus in honour of his father. He also built the inland port city of Seleucia Pieria on the estuary of the River Orontes. Halfway between the harbour and the city, in the vicinity of natural springs, Seleucus founded Daphne, a resort town famous for its beautiful view of the mountains and sea. It became a favourite resort for wealthy citizens. Libanius, the Greek rhetorician (AD 314-393) who was born in Antioch claimed (Oration 11.238), “If the gods ever really leave heaven and come to earth, I believe that they must come together and hold their councils here, since they could not spend their time in a fairer place” (Wilson, 2000: Vol. 21: 4).

The neighbouring empires of Rome and Sasanian Persia naturally had a mutual strategic interest in this prosperous city. The Persians captured Antioch in AD 540 and the Byzantines recovered it for a short time before it was conquered during the Arab Conquest in 630. In AD 969 the city was re-conquered by the Byzantine emperor Nicophorus II Phocas (r. AD 963-969) and held for 115 years, until it was taken by the Seljuk Turks in 1085. In 1098 Antioch was seized by the Crusaders and was finally destroyed by the Mamluk Sultan Baibars in 1268, who destroyed all the port cities along the eastern Mediterranean coastline, to prevent the Crusaders from returning. The destruction was so complete that the town never recovered and its important role was taken over by the nearby city of Alexandretta, modern Iskenderun in southern Turkey (Brooten, 2000; Foss, 2000; Harvey, 2000; Kondoleon, 2000a; Maas, 2000). During centuries extensive pillaging by seekers of building materials robed the walls of the buildings, down to their foundation; this complicated for archaeologist the reconstruction of the whole complex (Stillwell, 1961, 47-48).

A passage from Malalas’ Chronicle (2.282) reports that Marcus Aurelian built a numphaion called “Okeanon” at Antioch and the importance of water and this deity at this location is enhanced by the discovery of a relief depicting Ocean, probably from a waterspout, at nearby Seleucia Pieria. Antioch was famous for its water sources – the Mediterranean, the Orontes River and the natural springs and pools at nearby Daphne, with their healing properties. The use of riverine themes, rather than marine ones, in the above iconography was a natural extension of the local water-rich, beautiful environment, which sustained life and luxury. As Libanius of Antioch wrote, hunters and fishermen “lived by the… favor of fortune”, and fishing imagery is considered to have additionally functioned as symbols of luck. Since fish were a luxury commodity in antiquity, related images conveyed a sense of status and exclusivity (Kondoleon, 2000: 152-53).

B. THE HOUSE OF MENANDER The House of Menander (Figs. 7) is one of the largest sites excavated in the Antioch region and is the most

Antioch was an important flourishing city on the crossroads between the lands to the east, west, south, and

6

TURKEY: ANTIOCH AND DAPHNE

Fig. 6. Daphne, Turkey, 2-3rd century AD (Levi, 1971, III)

complete excavated site. Located in Daphne (Fig. 6), the floors date to the 3rd century AD (Dobbins, 2000: 57-59). In the south-east corner of the house are two adjoining rooms. The room to the west, accessible from the north, is divided into three parts: an atrium supported by two columns, a large central area paved with well-preserved mosaics and a pool (Levi, 1971: 198). Under the atrium floor existed an earlier mosaic. The mosaic in the central part of the room consists of a rectangular panel facing the entrance (Fig. 8). The image is framed by triangles and a trellis border between two straight dark grey lines. Within each section of the trellis are flowers in diamonds and triangles along the frame. The main central motif is framed by two lines and between them, on a black ground, lays a twisted grey and reddish ribbon. The scene depicts three nude erotes. In the centre sits an erote rowing his boat to the left. In both lower corners of the picture are two additional erotes with fishing rods, standing on a rock facing each other. The erote at left

Fig. 7. The House of Menander, Daphne, Turkey, 2-3rd century AD (Levi: 1971) 7

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

incurved and a vertical bow. This boat is depicted in more detail than the House of Menander example. Thirdly, a comparable boat is displayed on a mosaic from Utica near Carthage (3rd century AD), presently in the Bardo Museum, Tunis (Fig. 9). The fundamental similarities include especially the rising stern and the vertical bow. An exception are the steering oars, which are depicted on all three boats but are not visible on the boat at Daphne. There are also some similarities in the hull construction with the ship ‘Musculus’ (Fig. 10) depicted on the floor mosaic in Althiburus (Fig. 41/10).

Fig. 8. Marine craft on a mosaic, the House of Menander, Daphne, 2-3rd century AD (Levi, 1971)

wraps his right hand around a grayish-blue cloth holding a fishing line in both hands, the left hand outstretched. The erote on the right side wears a cap on his head and holds a fishing rod with a fish in his outstretched right hand. The boat has the form of a small fishing vessel with a raised stern slightly incurved and with a vertical bow. The flag attached to the bow resembles a large feather. Fish and molluscs swim around the main composition on a white background. The theme of water in the House of Menander has been interpreted as evoking luxury and the wealth of the household, which relied on the local water sources at Daphne (Kondoleon, 2000b: 75-76).

Fig. 10. The ‘Musculus’ ship from the floor mosaic in Althiburus (by courtesy of S. Kingsley)

C. THE HOUSE OF OKEANOS AND THETIS, ANTIOCH The House of Okeanos and Thetis (Levi, 1971: 222ff) is an isolated entity, which is not associated with additional archaeological material. The mosaic floor covered the floor of the house and is surrounded by a stylobate. The floor is badly damaged, except for its left part. The central image is framed by three borders. The outer one is similar to the example in the House of Menander: a trellis with alternating light and dark strips, decorated with empty diamonds and flowers. Next to it is a threestranded guilloche between two rows of crow-step in grey and brown shades. Two lines of black tesserae enclose the scene, overlapping at each corner.

Parallels Similar fishing boats with slight variations are common amongst mosaics from different regions. For practical reasons of space and non-repetition, just three important examples are provided below. The structure of the mentioned boat hull is similar to the sailing vessel depicted on the villa floor at Migdal Nunia, Israel, which dates to the 1st century AD (Chapter 5A). The second parallel is the mosaic discovered in the triclinium of a villa at Sousse in Tunisia (Roman period) within a Nilotic composition (Fig. 42), where the rowing boat in the right corner displays a rising stern, again notably slightly

The image is divided into three related scenes (Fig. 11). In the upper scene Okeanus and Thetis recline to face each other. Okeanus on the left side lies on a couch or boat (mostly destroyed). He holds an oar in his right hand and rests his arm on a vase from which water flows into the lower part of the scene (reminiscent of the Nile God on the mosaic from Beth Shean; Fig. 58). His arm and legs are covered with an olive green fabric and lobster claws, like horns, rise from his head. His left arm is stretched out towards Thetis, whom he is looking at. Only Thetis’ head, with two wings and a part of her nude torso, are preserved. Locks of hair are spread across her neck. In the forwardly extended arm she holds a small dolphin. Fish swim in all directions in the lower part of the mosaic panel. An erote, whose only one arm with a whip and the

Fig. 9. Mosaic from Utica, Bardo Museum, Tunis, 3rd century AD (Picard, 1971, 119, Pl. XLIII) 8

TURKEY: ANTIOCH AND DAPHNE

Fig. 12. Room M 37 A.O. 73927, (Pekáry, 1999, 284, 285)

from whose union arose the ocean nymphs, also known as the 3,000 Oceanids, and all the rivers of the world, fountains, and lakes (Stillwell, 1961: 45-57). D. YAKTO COMPLEX Near Daphne, in the small village of Yakto, a house with mosaic floors dating to the 5th century AD was discovered in 1932. The walls had been robbed out, as had many parts of its mosaics. Room B, the ‘Thetis Room’, depicts Thetis rising from the sea, filled with fish, and putti fishing and riding on dolphins (Levi, 1971, 323, fig. 136, pl. LXXV). The composition is rectangular, and may be viewed upright from all its four sides. Only the middle part is preserved (Figs. 13a, 13b).

Fig. 11. Mosaic depicting Okeanus and Thetis, Antioch, 5th century AD (Levi, 1971, 222, pl. LC)

The sea around is depicted as a border in deep green colours. Thetis’ bust rises from the sea on one of the long sides. A snake with a dog’s head is entwined around the bust of the sea goddess. Thetis’ face is encircled by a thick mass of hair from which two lobster claws rise above her temples. She wears large pendant earrings. In her right hand she holds a rudder, in her left hand a small dolphin. Facing her, on both sides, are naked putti riding dolphins. On the right side of the carpet is a seated putto fishing. Four nude putti also fish in the centre of the opposite long side. On the right side two putti standing in the water are pulling in a heavy net filled with fish, their legs discernible through the water.

other hand holding reins are preserved, rides a large dolphin. In the middle scene is a small rowing boat depicting two nude putti fishing. One putto is rowing with two oars towards the right of the scene. The other stands on the left side of the boat, facing his companion. He holds a curved fishing rod in one hand, and the other is outstretched to catch a fish. The boat’s depiction is schematized by a black outline. It has a round shallow keel, a rising bow and stern. The gunwale is outlined by a brighter line, which continues forward beyond the hull, indicating the presence of some sort of a bowsprit.

On the left side of this panel are two naked putti in a boat (Fig. 14). The water is grey-green, the boat brown, and the putti pink with dark brown hair. The putto on the left bends forward, pulling a net. His spine is emphasised by a darker line. His companion sits on the right side and holds in each hand a rowing oar. Due to the crude depiction of the canoe, it could be, that it is powered by a paddle rather than oars. Fish swim around the boat. The boat is rendered schematically, with identical bow and stern and a low hull. No signs of planking or any hull construction are represented, which gives the visual impression of a dugout, although this is not likely in a classical context. The boat is artistically presented from above to show the interior, but without any details – even the bench on which the oarsman sits is not shown. Pictorially it was necessary to show a scene with fishermen standing in water and in a boat, with the emphasis on the action rather than the structure of the vessel.

Parallels The closest parallel seems to be a clay model illustrated by Pekáry (1999: 284-285; Fig. 12). It shares the same long narrow hull form, a nearly horizontal gunwale and a slightly risen bow and stern. Both boats have an elegant appearance. Strictly speaking, any concept of the anatomy and realism of the rowing boats depicted on the mosaics of Antioch takes secondary stage to symbolic meaning. In classical antiquity Okeanos represents the ocean-stream at the Equator, in which floated the habitable hemisphere. In the view of some scholars he originally represented all bodies composed of salt water, including the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. His consort was his sister Tethys,

9

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Fig. 13. Mosaic of Thetis, Yakto, Turkey, 5th century AD (Levi, 1971, Fig. 136)

Fig. 14. Mosaic of Thetis, Yakto, Turkey, 5th century AD (Levi, 1971, Fig. 136)

10

3 SYRIA: RAYÂN, APAMEA, SORÂN AND SHAHBA-PHILIPPOPOLIS Near the apse the second carpet is square, surrounded by a border composed of triangles on both sides and two winding ribbons between them. Also this square is divided into an octagon, similar to the entrance panel, which forms triangles in the corners with amphorae and branches with leaves. The central octagon is divided by squares, triangles, and diamonds with geometric patterns into nine octagons containing circles. Three octagons contain inscriptions, two contain sailing vessels (see below), one a hare, two a sheep and one a vase with branches.

A. RAYÂN To the south-east of Antioch and Daphne, east of the River Orontes in modern Syria, the villages of Rayân, Apamea, and Sorân contain the remains of three contemporary basilicas dating to the 4th-5th AD. The Rayân basilica is 25 m long and 15 m wide. The floor, excluding the apse, was paved with mosaics, comprising tesserae in black, variations of grey, yellow, brown, orange, and white (Figs. 15-16). In a square carpet in front of the apse are three inscriptions providing two dates. The first, AD 411, relates to the construction of the church; the second, AD 472, to a renovation.

The northern aisle is divided into two rectangular panels, the first on the west side with a semi-circular design (in each a flower) and the second with octagons similar to the pattern in the nave. Most of the medallions contain geometric designs. Four have animals: a fish, a bird, a sheep, and a dog. The southern aisle is divided into six fields, three with geometric designs, one with medallions containing birds and flowers, one with a big medallion surrounded by a guilloche frame with two birds amongst flowers and one with two ducks between flowers. In the eastern area overlapping the apse is a square floor with a mosaic framed by a braid, enclosing two pairs of roebucks, flowers, birds and in the centre an amphora.

The nave is divided from both aisles by two rows of six columns. The northern aisle is destroyed on its eastern side; the southern aisle is complete, apart from a square area on the western side. The southern aisle has a square room attached to the eastern flank. There is no indication whether the entrance into the church was through a narthex or where the entrance doors were located. It is logical to presume that worshipers entered through a western door into the nave, where two mosaic carpets are situated. The first carpet is a composition of squares and triangles creating hexagons. In each hexagon is a medallion surrounded by two circles. The seven central medallions depict a flower, two gazelles, a dog or possibly a lion, a hare, fishes in water, and a geometric pattern.

As mentioned above, on the mosaic carpet next to the apse in the nave, two sailing vessels are depicted (Fig. 16). The vessel in the northern medallion (Fig. 17a) has a deep hull with a horizontal gunwale and a straight keel. The form of the bow and stern is shaped to fit the round medallion. The planking is emphasised by horizontal lines. The mast in the middle of the boat has a forestay, backstay and shrouds.

The second carpet is rectangular, depicting elongated octagons joined by small rectangles. In each octagon is an identical rectangle with four smaller rectangles on each side. The pavement is divided into three fields, to be observed from the apse. The second field is a rectangle, its long sides running north-south. In the middle is an amphora flanked by two sheep facing it. The scene is covered by an arch and a decoration of winding branches with leaves.

The sailing vessel in the east-western medallion (Fig. 17b) is associated with an inscription, divided into two parts on either side of the mast and reading ‘PIAT-YKA’ what means “the one who is able to save”, as a symbol for the safety of the sailors (discussed by Donceel-Voûte, 1988: 262; Dolger, 1950). The vessel is more realistically

11

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Fig. 15. The Church, Rayân, Syria, 5th century AD (Donceel-Voûte, 1988, pl. 12) 12

SYRIA: RAYÂN, APAMEA, SORÂN AND SHAHBA-PHILIPPOPOLIS

The second ship may be compared to the ship depicted on the floor at Althiburus in Tunisia (Chapter 5A, Fig. 40/1). However, on the Althiburus ship the bow is turned inwards. The ship’s body is similar to the example on the northern aisle in the church of Mahat-el-Aradi, Beth Guvrin (Chapter 5D, Fig. 63). B. APAMEA

Parallels

Apamea is located westwards of Rayân, to the east of the River Orontes, 55 km north-west of Hama. Historical sources indicate that Apamea was founded on the remains of ancient Niya, an important strategic city on the coastal road used during military campaigns in the 2nd and first half of the 1st millennium BC. Niya and its vicinity are mentioned in ancient Egyptian, Hittite, and Akkadian texts from the XV-IX centuries BC. These are for instance the campaign of Thutmose III (r. 1479-1425 BC; ANET 234-238) against the Hittites, in relation to the treaty between Suppiluiumas, the king of Hatti, and Aziras of Amuru in the 14th century BC (ANET 529530), and the campaign under Seti I (r. 1290-1279 BC; ANET 253-254). The archives in the Neo-Hittite palace in Hama reveal the role played by Urahilina (Urhilina) or Irhuleni, king of Hama (853-845 BC) in the coalition (which included the Aramean king, Ben-Hadad II of Damascus against the Assyrian warrior-monarch Shalmaneser III (r. 859-824 BC), son and successor of Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883-859 BC). The town passed from Assyrian to Persian and later into Hellenistic hands. After Alexander the Great’s death, Seleucus I Nicator made it one of the three main cities of the Seleucid Empire, along with Antioch on the Orontes and Seleucia on the Tigris (Smith, 1875: Apamea 1).

The first vessel is not easily compared to examples on other mosaics because of its stylised nature, but the round body and horizontal gunwale are reminiscent of the sailing vessel depicted on the Zay al-Gharby floor mosaic in Jordan (Chapter 6E, Fig. 90).

Apamea was founded in 300 BC either by Seleucus I Nicator (r. 358-281 BC), the first Seleucid king in Syria, or by his son Antiochus I. Seleucus had the city named after his wife Apamea. During a short span of time the city prospered. A number of important historical

Fig. 16. Central mosaic carpet, Rayân Syria, 5th century AD (Donceel-Voûte, 1988, pl. 12)

depicted than the previous example: its round, deep body and keel are emphasised by a dark line rising into the symmetrical bow and stern. The gunwale has a deep round recess in the middle rising to both sides. The mast sits in the middle of the ship. The fore- and backstay run from the top of the mast to the bow and stern. The planking is not indicated. As on the first boat, the steering oars are not represented.

Fig. 17. Two medallions depicting ships, Rayân, Syria, 5th century AD (Donceel-Voûte, 1988, pl. 12) 13

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Fig. 18. Mosaic floor from the Triclinium Apamea, Syria, 4th century AD (Balty, 1995, pl. XIV/2)

Fig. 19. Detail of the boat on the Triclinium mosaic at Apamea, Syria, 4th century AD (Balty, 1995, pl. XIV/2)

personalities visited or lived in Apamea, such as Cleopatra, Septimius Severus (r. AD 193-211) and his son Caracalla (r. AD 186-217). The stoic philosopher and scholar Posidonius, (135-51/50 BC) was born here. Impressive monuments were constructed in the Roman and Byzantine periods, such as the famous colonnade. A number of beautiful mosaics discovered in the city attest to the opulence of its ruling elite. However, by the time of the Arab Conquest the city declined to the point that it offered little defence and was easily conquered (Smith, 1875: Apameia 1).

The mosaic floor in the building known as the triclinium (dining room) dates, in comparison to the mosaics in Antioch, to the 4th century AD on stylistic criteria (Balty, 1977: 70-71). It contains an interesting marine scene (Fig. 18, 19). At left on the marine panel is a temple, a lighthouse with a porch, and a quay. In front of the temple a fisherman stands on the quay. A man approaches the quay from the rear of the lighthouse dressed in a short tunic with a bag on his left shoulder. In the middle of the panel a boat sits at anchor from which a sailor helps a gentleman, dressed in a long

14

SYRIA: RAYÂN, APAMEA, SORÂN AND SHAHBA-PHILIPPOPOLIS

mantle, onto a gangway. In the bow space sits a sailor with his right hand beckoning his companions towards the shore. Here, a semi-clad fisherman approaches the shore with a basket on his shoulder with his right arm pointing towards a small temple flanked by winged griffins. The see in the background is given a silver effect by application of light coloured small tesserae.

Parallels The boat resembles the vessel from the House of Menander in Daphne (Fig. 8) and examples from Utica (Fig. 9) and Sousse in Tunisia (Fig. 48). All of these boats share a low hull, rising bow and flat stern. C. SORÂN, KHIRBET CHEIKH MESSAOUD

The middle part of the boat is damaged. It seems to be a sailing vessel. Its hull is low, with a horizontal gunwale continuing into the stern. The bow rises and curves inwards. A strake of darker cubes runs along the middle of the hull, from bow to stern. Four lines rise in the centre of the boat, where the mosaic is ruined; these could indicate parts of the rigging. The boat is loaded with some unidentified bales.

Modern Sorân is a small village located 60 km south of Rayân in Syria. Here were discovered, within the remains of a basilica, three mosaic floors two of which are bearing an inscriptions. Only part of the southern wall and the diakonikon (sacristy) survived. The entire floor of the basilica was covered with mosaic carpets. The diakonikon is divided into eastern and western areas (Fig. 20).

Fig. 20. Plan of the preserved mosaics in the basilica at Khirbet Cheikh Messaoud, Sorân, Syria, Syria, AD 432 (Donceel-Voûte, 1988, pl. 13)

15

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Next to the south-eastern wall is a large border with possibly a Nilotic scene. It depicts the bow of a sailing vessel in front of which swims a fish, and a duck sitting on a large papyrus flower (Fig. 23). Another fragment of the same border shows the stern of a boat loaded with three amphorae (Fig. 24) and another large papyrus leaf. Fragments in the southern aisle depict a leopard devouring a gazelle.

The mosaic floor in the diakonikon is well preserved, unlike the mosaic in the nave and aisle. In the nave only the central part containing the dedicatory inscription survives. Six lines of the inscription indicate that the church was built in AD 432. Surrounding the dedication is a grid with squares depicting birds, fish, and a bowl with fruit and flowers. Only eight squares survive. Roughly half of the mosaic in the area of the apse is intact (Fig. 21). The field area was surrounded by a wide border comprising two lines enclosing branches with heart-shaped leaves. Inside the field are squares, diamonds, and triangles with geometric motifs, which created alternating rows of octagons and squares. The octagons contain: a hare nibbling on vine leaves; a bull standing in front of a tree; and a chalice with two birds perched on its rim. The squares contain: a catfish; a lion clutching a rabbit head in his paws. In the third row an octagon depicts a sailing vessel (Fig. 22).

Fig. 23. Detail of the sailing boat from the southern aisle at Khirbet Cheikh Messaoud Sorân, Syria, AD 432 (Donceel-Voûte, 1988, fig. 295)

Fig. 24. The boat from the intercolumnar mosaic at Khirbet Cheikh Messaoud, Sorân, Syria, AD 432 (Donceel-Voûte, 1988, fig. 297) Fig. 21. Mosaic carpet near the apse at Khirbet Cheikh Messaoud Sorân, Syria, AD 432 (Donceel-Voûte, 1988, pl. 13)

The diakonikon contains two mosaic carpets of which the eastern one was partially destroyed in a later period by the insertion of a basin. In the remaining fragment is an inscription and medallions composed of branches with grapes. The western carpet is almost completely preserved. A wide border of meanders, squares, and a geometric pattern in the form of a guilloche enclose a narrow wavy frame. The inner field contains a framed inscription. The northern part is a square field divided by a net pattern into 13 small squares and 12 triangles. Each square depicts a bird (Fig. 20). The sailing vessel depicted in the nave (Fig. 22), with a rounded hull and with the keel submerged under waves is particularly well preserved. The stern and bow rise symmetrically curving outwards, forming an unusually shaped prow and sternpost. A short line on the right side of the keel could signify a steering oar or perhaps waves? The ship is in motion with an open square sail, as if moving to the left of the scene. The mast standing in the

Fig. 22. Sailing vessel from the nave at Khirbet Cheikh Messaoud, Sorân, Syria, AD 432 (Donceel-Voûte, 1988, pl. 13) 16

SYRIA: RAYÂN, APAMEA, SORÂN AND SHAHBA-PHILIPPOPOLIS

Fig. 25. Comparison of the two intercolumnar mosaic fragments, at Khirbet Cheikh Messaoud Sorân, Syria, 5th century AD (Donceel-Voûte, 1988, figs. 295 and 297) middle of the boat has a cross at its apex. The yard is connected close to the top of the mast and two braces fasten the yard to each rake. The gunwale is rounded, unusually low at the middle of the boat, presumably to emphasise the cargo of four amphorae. There are no signs of planking or other construction features of the hull. The artist was interested primarily in depicting a cargo of Roman amphorae, of a form typically used to transport wine, olive oil, or fish sauce (garum). The amphorae are typically Roman, high-necked vessels, with handles from rim to shoulder.

Parallels

Two further illustrations represent boats with notably similar hulls to each other (Fig. 25). It is therefore appropriate to assess whether the artist used the same pattern for both ship hulls. Some differences in the hull constructions can be perceived.

The amphorae represented at Sorân in a 5th-century AD context are unusual in that they do not typify forms in circulation in the Near East, but represent Western Mediterranean forms of Roman origin, most closely examples from Spain (Peackock and Williams, 1986: Class 19, 21, 22). Three typologically comparable amphorae (Fig. 26) composed of brown tesserae, with occasional black cubes, sit in the centre of a sailing ship inserted into a mosaic in the Apamea region of Syria, dated to the 4th-5th century AD, now in the Apamea Archaeological Museum (cf. Kingsley, 2004a: 45; fig. XX). As in the case at Sorân, this boat’s prow and stern are both strongly out-curved and somewhat symmetrical. A schematically rendered steering oar features a square blade end. Greenish waves underlie the boat, which is

Clear similarities exist between the sailing vessel positioned near the apse (Fig. 22) and the sailing vessel associated with the Nile motif in the Beth Shean mosaic (Fig. 58). The hulls in both ships display a bow rising and turned outwards. The mast is positioned in the middle of the ship, with the yard attached slightly below the top of the mast. The difference lies in the way the forestay is attached. On the Beth Shean mosaic it is fixed to the stem, in the Sorân mosaic to the keelson.

The sailing vessel depicted in the southern aisle (Fig. 23) features a straight keel, which continues into a high outwardly turned timberhead. The gunwale is horizontal and links with the bow. The mosaicist has presented an impression of perspective by showing part of the inside of the boat. The mast seems to be closer to the bow, with a yard slung to the mast with a ring. The sail is furled at each end and is positioned in the middle of the mast. The reefing lines are shown by three diamonds, and the mast is supported by one fore and one backstay. The vessel depicted on the intercolumnar fragment (Fig. 24) seems to be a merchant vessel by similarity of the hull shape with the one previously described (Fig. 23) and the fact that the artist shows amphorae on board. No signs of a mast or a sail are present, and the hull displays a round keel. The gunwale is horizontal, raised towards the stern, and a step emphasises the rake of the stern. A steering oar protrudes through the hull by a round hole. The vessel seems to be particularly suited to sail, not to be moved only by oars. The rounded steering oar blade sits on the end of a shaft, with its lower part covered partly by waves. It would appear that the artist wanted to represent some harmony between the oar and the oversized papyrus leaf to its right. The boat is loaded with three Roman amphorae, two with handles attached from the rim to the shoulders, similar to the amphorae of the sailing vessel depicted inside the octagon (Fig. 22), and one seemingly without handles.

Fig. 26. A merchant vessel carrying amphorae; Apamea, Syria. 4th – 5th century AD 17

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

gunwale are three small vertical stakes, possibly oarlocks, formed by a narrow band of tesserae. The keel is partly covered by water.

rendered in brown – the correct colour for wood – with black contour lines running all the way around the keel, endposts and upper edges. A dolphin and fish swim in the ocean. D. SHAHBA-PHILIPPOPOLIS Shahba (Philippopolis) in Syria, is situated on high ground in the heart of the Jabal al-Arab region, 1,000 m above sea level and approximately 90 km south of Damascus and 100 km east of the Sea of Galilee. The town was built between AD 244 and 294 by Philip the Arab (r. AD 244-249). Philippopolis was designed as a city with the typical characteristics of Roman civilisation: paved streets, a palace, theatre, temple and bath-houses. The rectangular fortified town was entered by four gates.

Fig. 28. Tethys. Detail of the border. Boat A, Shahba, Syria, 4th century AD (Balty, 1977, 69a)

In one of the buildings a mosaic was uncovered depicting Tethys (Fig. 27), dating to the 4th century. Presently it is housed in the local museum (Balty, 1977: 66-69). The central carpet is of 1.26 sq. metre enclosed by a two-line frame of cubes. The picture is surrounded by a 40 cm wide border depicting a marine scene.

Boat B (Fig. 29) is moving to the left of the picture. It also features a deep hull and a horizontal gunwale, slightly rising at the bow and stern. The gunwale is emphasised by a row of dark and bright tesserae. Between the middle of the boat and the stem is a railing on the gunwale. The rowing oar is pulled through the same oarlock devise as on boat A. In this boat sit two winged putti, reminiscent of angels. The one at the bow, on the left side, holds in both hands a net filled with fish. The putto in front of him sits facing his companion, his right hand raised as in an animated argument. In the left hand he holds a rowing oar. The keel is covered by water, the fishing net, and fishes.

Fig. 27. Tethys, Shahba, Syria, 4th century AD (Balty, 1977, 66 figs 28-29)

Tethys, the sister and wife of Okeanos, is depicted conventionally with thick hair entwined with sea creatures, monsters, fish, and starfish. As often portrayed, a dragon with the head of a dog winds around her neck; on her left shoulder is an oar.

Fig. 29. Tethys. Detail of the border. Boat B, Shahba, Syria, 4th century AD (Balty, 1977, 69b)

The 40 cm wide border depicts well-rendered putti in rowing boats, which display a deep hull with an emphasised gunwale. Boat A (Fig. 28) is moving to the right of the picture. It incorporates a slightly raked stern continuing into the gunwale which rises towards the bow turned outwards. The oar with a long narrow blade is positioned close to the stern, pulled through a rectangular device on top of the gunwale. In the middle of the boat sits a putto facing in the direction of movement. On the

Parallels The hull of these two rowing boats remind in their constructions the rowing boat on the intercolumnar mosaic panel in the Church of Holy Martyrs Lot and Procopius (Fig. 88), but it is obvious that the artist’s main object was to depict the fishing scene with the putti.

18

4 LEBANON: KHALDÉ-CHOUEIFAT The southern aisle (Fig. 30) incorporates two frames; the outer one has two enlaced fillets with diamonds; the inner frame is composed of a guilloche, which also divides the panel into rectangular fields with squares and swastikas between them. The square room to the east features a simple guilloche frame, but inside it is divided by parallel lines decorated with semi-circles into four squares in each corner and four rectangles on the sides. In the central square, so created, is a picture of a portal, probably a church.

A. KHALDÉ-CHOUEIFAT Khaldé-Choueifat is located 20 km south of Beirut and is associated with an excavated Byzantine basilica (32 m long and 23 m wide) dating to the 5th century AD (Fig. 30). As the major part of the floor remained intact, actually the complete floor could be redrawn. The entrance to the church, as usual, was through a narthex on the western side. The rectangular apse is enclosed on its eastern side by heavy masonry. The nave is divided from both aisles by a row of eight columns and between each column is a 1.90 m long mosaic carpet. The northern aisle has an annex; on the eastern side is a rectangular room, which extends to the apse. The southern aisle extends also into a smaller rectangular room. The mosaic floors in the church are well preserved, with lacunae mostly in the western part of the building. The size of the tesserae (white, yellow, pink, red, grey and black) varies between 0.8 and 0.9 sq cm.

The intercolumnar spaces between the nave and the aisles comprise rectangles with a geometric pattern. In front of the apse is a long rectangular mosaic with diamonds and small squares. Descending from the apse into the nave the images face the entrance. On both sides of the step is depicted a deer. The carpet in the nave is divided into two large squares. The eastern square contains smaller squares, rectangles and rosettes, all with geometric designs. A large part of this carpet is destroyed.

The mosaic in the narthex was destroyed except for its southern section. The remains show that the pattern was identical along the entire floor. It depicted three rows of circles, framed alternatively by a band of guilloche, wavy lines, triangles, and meanders.

At the entrance to the nave from the narthex is a large square floor (Figs. 31-35) framed by a double-stranded guilloche with a narrow line of triangles. Only the northeastern and the south-western areas survive. The field is divided by a floral grid of diaper squares, 75 cm long, permitting enough space for other pictorial details (Figs. 32, 33). In each square are different animals, trees, flowers, fish and two ships in the north-western corner.

The two aisles display a highly complex design (Fig. 30). The northern aisle has a guilloche frame incorporating crosses. The oblong carpet is divided by lines into three fields. In the middle field is a circle with an elaborate acanthus vine design. On both sides are three octagons of two interlaced hexagons. In the octagons are images of a hare under a vine, shells, two birds facing each other and a container filled with grapes and flowers.

The largest and most prominent ship in this scene (Fig. 34) is travelling to the left with a hoisted sail. Unfortunately the upper part of the ship’s image is damaged. Pictorially the shape of the sail is triangular, but according to current research, in the 5th century the traditional lateen sail was not yet in use (Whitewright, 2009: 100). The sail rig is best interpreted as a quadrilateral settee sail and is notably almost identical to the sail on a late 5th to early 6th century AD ship depiction from the port of Kalediran in southern Turkey (Friedman

On the eastern end of the northern aisle is a rectangular sacristy (diakonikon). Its mosaic floor is divided into two squares and a rectangle encircled by a frame composed of small triangles. The first and third squares share a similar pattern. In the central rectangle Herakles is depicted dressed in a tunic. He holds a javelin in his left hand, in his right a hare and is flanked by his dogs. Above his left shoulder is an incomplete inscription.

19

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Fig. 30. Plan of the Church of Khaldé-Choueifat, Lebanon, 5th century AD (Donceel-Voûte, 1988, pl. 15)

and Zoroglu, 2006). In effect, this is an early variant of the lateen sail. Over the sail is an inscription, from which only the letters Ȇȁ remain, the beginning of a word, and at right the letters ǾȇǾȃǾȈ, which could mean ‘peace’. The boat displays a slightly rounded hull and keel. The hull is grey, and the planking is emphasised by dark brown and pink lines. The bow is wide and gently turned

outwards. The stern rises slightly. Two steering oars are connected to the stern from the starboard side. The artist depicted the gunwale overlapping the stern, but there is some inconsistency in the stern section of the ship. The steering oar is represented behind the stern and the port gunwale is covered by the rising stern. The

20

LEBANON: KHALDÉ-CHOUEIFAT

Fig. 34. The sailing vessel (in the square), Khaldé-Choueifat, Lebanon, 5th century (Donceel-Voûte, 1988, pl. 15)

positioned in the middle of the vessel, the yard is partly damaged. The sail is open with the brails emphasised by dark lines. Below the ship swims an oversized fish in the direction of sailing.

Fig. 31. Drawing of the entrance carpet, Khaldé-Choueifat, Lebanon, 5th century AD (Donceel-Voûte, 1988, pl. 15)

A second, smaller sailing vessel (Fig. 35) moves to the left. The ship’s body and keel are rounded. The planking is depicted in different colours as if accentuating the position of the strakes, ending at the bow in two vertical timber heads and at the stern turned outwards. Below the stem is a device reminscent of a battering ram or more likely a cutwater (see the explanation of A. Raban in Chapter 5A). On both sides of the stern are two steering oars with long blades. In the middle of the ship is the mast, with the yard slightly below the top and with a hoisted square sail. It appears that the ship is loaded with four amphorae; if correct, these are extremely schematically depicted. Below the ship swim two fishes to enhance the marine composition. Both ships are depicted sailing above the water, with their keels visible.

Fig. 32. Drawing of the entrance carpet, detail Khaldé-Choueifat, Lebanon, 5th century AD (Donceel-Voûte, 1988, pl. 15)

Fig. 33. The north-eastern corner viewed from the entrance carpet to the nave Khaldé-Choueifat, Lebanon, 5th century AD (Donceel-Voûte, 1988, 360, fig. 344) Fig. 35. The sailing vessel (in the triangle) Khaldé-Choueifat, Lebanon, 5th century AD (Donceel-Voûte, 1988, pl. 15)

mosaicist permitted the viewer to see inside the ship from the starboard side. Inside are three benches. The mast is 21

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

found with the ships depicted in the mosaic on the floor of Foro delle Corporationi, Ostia, Italy, mainly on Station 18 (Basch, 1987).

Parallels The larger ship (Fig. 34) may be compared to the ship from Beth Guvrin set in a round medallion (Chapter 5D, Fig. 61). The stern of the Beth Guvrin ship is lower, but the strakes and the hull share some similarity. The rendering of the form of the ships could be influenced by the shape of the enclosure, in this case the circle in which the Beth Guvrin ship is depicted as against the square of the Khaldé-Choueifat ship. Also some similarity could be

The smaller ship (Fig. 35) presents a striking similarity with the sailing boat from Haditha (Chapter 5F, Fig. 69): the same hull, the stern turned slightly outwards and the cutwater device under the stem, which served to increase the speed of the vessel and is often mistaken for a battering ram.

22

5 ISRAEL: MIGDAL NUNIA, LOD, BETH SHEAN, BETH GUVRIN, BETH LOYA AND HADITHA “then he collected all the boats there were on the lake, which were found to be 230, and in each of them he put no more than four sailors. So he sailed to Tiberius at full speed” (Jewish War 2.635).

A. MIGDAL NUNIA In the vicinity of Jerusalem, the Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea, in Israel and Jordan a vast number of synagogues, churches, and private buildings have been found, decorated with mosaic floors. The oldest known to date depicting a sailing vessel is located in the remains of a private house at Migdal Nunia on the north-western shore of the Sea of Galilee.

Josephus later recounted that when Vespasian was at Caesarea Philippi (Banias) he was informed that Tiberias and Tarichaeae had revolted. The Roman general marched against the rebels and conquered both towns (Jewish War 3.445). In the 1st century AD Strabo (Geography 16.2.45) recorded that in Tarichaeae the sea provided the finest fish for pickling. According to the Talmud, Migdal was a wealthy town,, destroyed by the Romans because of the moral depravity of its inhabitants. After the destruction of the Second Temple, Migdal became the seat of one of the 24 Christian priestly divisions. In Christian tradition this was the hometown of Mary Magdalene.

In the mid of the 1970s the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum of Jerusalem excavated in the centre of the Roman town the so-called ‘Urban Villa’ of Migdal Nunia, under the Direction of Dr. V. Corbo. This settlement is associated with the largest known ancient anchorage around Galilee, with a sheltered basin, docks and a 300 ft-long promenade, where underwater surveys have detected ashlar basalt stones, column sections and capitals, a bronze mirror and Roman potsherds scattered around and fallen from a building once set on a small island situated 30 m offshore and possibly the origin of the name of the town of ‘Migdal Nunyiah’ (‘Tower of the Fish’) (Galili et al., 1993: 76-77; Nun, 1999: 28-29). The site was inhabited between the 1st and 5th century AD. According to the excavator, the building was a private house, perhaps owned by a local official (Corbo, 1978).

In the earliest strata of the ‘Urban Villa’ (Fig. 36), dated to the 1st century AD, a mosaic floor was exposed, covering the entire floor of the north-western vestibule (Room C6), 2.80 x 2.60 m in area. This room seemingly functioned as the vestibule (vestibulum) and entrance (fauces), leading to the atrium with its pool, which was supplied with water from the aqueduct that entered the town from the south-west.

The town is mentioned several times by Josephus Flavius under the name Tarichaeae, and it appears that during the 1st century AD it was an important harbour town. In The Jewish War, Josephus, the Jewish commander of the Galilee during the First Jewish Revolt, emphasised its strategic importance, writing that “Realizing that the Romans would invade Galilee first, he [Josephus] fortified the most defensible positions, Jotapata, Bersabe and Salame, Caphareccho, Japha and Sigoph, Tabor, Tarichaeae and Tiberias, next fortifying the caverns (Arbela) near Lake Gennesaret in Lower Galilee…” (Jewish War 2.573). After the Roman cavalry closed the gates of the town of Tiberias to keep Josephus’ revolutionary forces out, the Jewish commander was at Tarichaeae and, in turn ordered the gates to be shut and

The 1st century AD mosaic floor is not entirely intact (Fig. 37). At the entrance of the room is a Greek inscription in black on white tesserae reading ‘ȀǹǿȈȊ’, ‘You Too’, presumably an invocation against the evil eye. The mosaic floor is composed of white, light brown, and black tesserae depicting in a schematic manner six items encircled by a frame composed of two black lines. The left corner contains an unidentified object between two leaves, to the right of it a disc and two containers. Under them is a kantharos with two handles and a triangular base. The various objects, perhaps because of the incompleteness of the floor, seem unrelated in terms of subject matter, size, or direction. In the lower left corner of the floor, visually separated from the other 23

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Fig. 36. The Urban Villa, Migdal Nunia, Israel, 1st century AD (Corbo, 1978, pl. 71)

presumably to represent submergence during rowing. Between the sailors in the forward third of the ship rises the mast with a square furled sail. From the aft edge of the yardarm to the deck hangs a rope, probably a brail used to handle the sail.

items but in the same frame, is a boat sailing to the left (Fig. 38). The empty space around the ship gives the impression that the artist regarded the ship to be the main motif of the composition. The ship’s hull is wide and heavy, with a bifurcated bow and a rising and curving elevated stern, incurved to the inside of the vessel in a spiral shape. This kind of spiral, or part of a spiral stern, is known from earlier Greek periods into the Byzantine period (Casson, 1971: 66-69). The lower part of the stem consists of a heavy protruding device resembling a battering ram. The upper part comprises the actual stem. A strake running from stem to stern is prominently emphasised by a white line. Above, four black stone cubes apparently depict four sailors, two of them rowing. The rear oar possesses an oval blade, most likely the steering oar. The two oars in front are similar, but are depicted cut off below the keel,

Judging from the form of the vessel and in comparison with traditional depictions of boats, this ship is without doubt an example of a fishing vessel local to the Sea of Galilee powered by sail when wind permitted and otherwise by oar (Steffy and Wachsmann, 1990). The idea that this might be a warship can be excluded despite the vessels’ ‘battering ram’ profile, or cutwater. Warships incorporated a tower on the stem and a larger number of oars (Casson, 1971: 97-156). Raban (1988: 50-51) explains the origin of this appendage type thus: “The origin of this form is a device 24

ISRAEL: MIGDAL NUNIA, LOD, BETH SHEAN, BETH GUVRIN, BETH LOYA AND HADITHA

water efficiently whilst under sail or oar power (Basch, 1983; Kingsley, 1997: 60). Parallels As in the Migdal Nunia composition, the ships depicted in Ostia in the 2nd century AD Foro delle Corporazioni have similarities in the shape of the hull and the square sail (Figs. 39, 40; Basch 1987: 1055, 1056, 1058). The ships are comparable in the manner of their slightly rounded keels, nearly horizontal sterns, which are raised and turn inwards. The ships depicted at Stations 32 and 46 feature a prolonged stern with a railing and figurehead, usually goose or duck-head.

Fig. 37. The mosaic floor, Migdal Nunia Israel, 1st century AD (by courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

Fig. 39. Ship from the mosaic floor of Foro delle Corporationi, Ostia, Italy, 2nd century AD (Basch,1983, 395, fig. 1)

Fig. 38. The Migdal mosaic boat intended to extend the longitudinal axis of the vessel by way of an addition to the keel at the bow and stern. With this addition it is possible to improve the hydrodynamics of the vessel while it is in motion, ease steering and the holding of a straight course, and minimise the drag caused by side winds and waves. This element, which in ancient visual depictions has occasionally been interpreted as a ram, has its origin already in the 2nd millennium BC. Similar examples can be found on Minoan stone seals as far back as the end of the 3rd millennium BC, and on a krater, dated to the 10th century BC found recently near Bodrum in south-west Turkey.” The feature is undoubtedly interpreted as a hydronamic cutwater relied on to enable a vessel to break through the

Fig. 40. Ship from the mosaic floor of Foro delle Corporationi, Ostia, Italy, 2nd century AD (Basch,1987, 1056, Station 32)

Various boats and ships are incorporated into the late 3rd century AD mosaic floor from Althiburus, Tunisia, now in the Bardo Museum, and as well as being illustrated are also named (Fig. 41). The most similar example to the Migdal Nunia vessel at Althiburus is the ship ‘Myoparo’ with its square sail, ‘spiral’ stern, and horizontal stem (Fig. 41/11) (Raban, 1988: 50-51).

25

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Fig. 41. Ships, mosaic floor, Althiburus, Tunisia (Casson, 1971, fig.137) advice to his companion. The steering oars have rectangular blades with the shafts discernible through the blades. The elevated stern, turned to the inside of the vessel in a spiral shape, can also be observed on the southern Dead Sea boat in the Madaba Map (Fig. 73), but in this case the stem there is not horizontal as in the case of the vessel at Migdal Nunia. On a 4th century AD mosaic from Carthage in modern Tunis in the Bardo Museum, Venus is depicted sitting on a throne, placing a crown on her head. Symmetrically disposed are two vessels on which seamen play the flute and dance (Fig. 43). Also here the hull is built in the same style (Fantar, 1994: 65). Fig. 42. Fishing scene, a Nilotic floor from Sousse, Roman period (Foucher, 1963, fig. 20) A similarly constructed hull is depicted on a fishing boat amid a Nilotic scene on a floor mosaic from Sousse, Tunisia (Fig. 42). Flanked by papyrus plants, fishes, crocodiles and hippopotamuses are fishing boats, similar in construction, rendered as if to be observed from all points of viewing. Since all of these vessels seem to be of similar type, this description is restricted to the vessel positioned in the right corner. The hull is slightly rounded with the stem vertical in relation to the gunwale and a high raised stern turned slightly inwards, surmounted by a decoration, reminding feathers. On the boat are two men, one standing on a deck, close to the stem, fighting a hippopotamus; the other, the steersman, sits next to the steering oars, his right hand stretched out, perhaps giving

Fig. 43. Venus sitting on a throne Carthage, Tunisia, 4th century AD (Fantar, 1994, 65) 26

ISRAEL: MIGDAL NUNIA, LOD, BETH SHEAN, BETH GUVRIN, BETH LOYA AND HADITHA

B. THE LOD VILLA MOSAIC Lod is situated on the ancient road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, some 20 km north-east of Tel Aviv. The town was inhabited through many centuries and is well documented. Reference will be made here only to the most significant texts, which are relevant to the period of the mosaic floor’s use and which reveal the importance of the town’s development. Lod is first mentioned is in the Annals of Thutmosis III’s (1479-1425 BC) list of towns conquered on his campaign in the region, carved onto the walls of the Temple of Karnak. The Old Testament (Chronicles 8.12) mentions the building of the towns of Ono and Lod by the exiles who returned from Babylon in 538 BC (Ezra 2.33; Nehemia 7.37). Lod was a Jewish spiritual and religious centre until the 4th century BC (Schwartz, 1986 and 1991). In the Hellenistic period, under the name Lydda, the town became the capital of one of Judaea’s toparchys (districts) but reached its peak prosperity during the Roman and Byzantine periods, when it was renamed Diospolis. In the New Testament, Peter is described visiting the faithful in Lod and healing Aeneas (Acts of the Apostles 9.32-35). Under the emperor Septimius Severus (r. AD 193-211) Lod became a Roman colony, and during the Talmudic era a centre of Jewish scholarship.

Fig. 44. Mosaic carpet viewed from the North, Lod, Israel, 3rd century AD (by courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

from each side of the container in spirals with leaves and birds. The southern panel is largely destroyed. The remaining mosaic is divided into two panels surrounded by frames of diamonds and a guilloche. The northern side of this panel is a rectangle with birds, a swan, a hen, a cock, a duck and probably doves perched on branches, which are covered with leaves and flowers, giving the whole picture a pastoral impression (Ovadiah et al., 1998: 9). The floor is decorated with concave hexagons, medallions containing animals, all enclosed by guilloche.

In 1996 Lod municipality started to construct a road in the city centre, during which the remains of ancient walls were unearthed. The Israel Antiquities Authority, under the Direction of M. Avissar, discovered a floor mosaic 80 cm below the surface (Fig. 44), executed in the finest technique. The floor is one of the most colourful and artistically sophisticated mosaics discovered in Israel. The proposed construction was stopped, the road rerouted, and thorough archaeological excavations commenced.

The northern panel is divided into three sections with two rectangles and a square between them. The northern rectangle has two frames: a wave crest and a guilloche. Inside are nine hexagons and two half medallions formed of the same guilloche and decorated with birds, fish, beasts of prey and a basket of fish. The scenery is so arranged that the subject matter can be observed from all sides.

The found mosaic carpet is 9 m wide and more than 17 m long, part of a reconstructed total area of some 200 sq m. Its southern side has not survived, and its remains were located buried under debris of collapsed walls with colourful wall fresco fragments mixed with pottery shards from imported amphorae. The debris included coins, and as a whole dated to the late 3rd or early 4th century AD. To the west and north-east a small part of the building’s walls were preserved. Clearly the structure had served as a residence of an important citizen. The excavator logically suggested that the exposed floor belonged to the triclinium (dining room) of a Roman villa. During the lifting of the mosaic in 2009, the mosaicists incised guide lines were discovered alongside the imprints of feet and sandals (sizes 34, 37, 42 and 44), which suggests that the craftsmen initially tamped down the mortar in place with their feet.

The central panel contains three frames: a complex guilloche, a narrow geometric frame with triangles and a simple guilloche that encloses the carpet and divides the picture into 21 polygons. In the centre is an octagonal panel decorated with animals from Africa or Asia. They are portrayed at different levels as if from bird’s-eye view in gradations of light and shade, achieving a threedimensional impression. In the background, on two mountains separated by a stream, a lion and a lioness face each other. A whale swims in the stream. Turnheim (2004: 30) suggests that this panel should be regarded as a Nilotic scene, because of the elements incorporated. On four sides of this hexagonal pattern are square panels, two containing beasts of prey, a pastoral scene and a

The mosaic is composed of two rectangular panels divided by a narrow band, surrounded by a single line of cubes. In the middle of this band is a kantharos with two spiral handles and a peacock on each side. A vine issues

27

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Fig. 45. Mosaic with two merchant ships Lod, 3rd century AD (by courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

kantharos between two wild cats, perhaps panthers. In each corner of this hexagon are three triangles, and in the middle triangle a fish with birds on each side. In each corner of the square panel are two dolphins separated by Neptune’s trident. To the east of the middle panel is a small and narrow panel, perhaps related to a spatial passage, destroyed in its eastern part. This zone features a complex guilloche frame surrounding a petal frame. On it a table is depicted with three animal’s legs, which in turn is surmounted by a kantharos with spiral handles. In the southern panel, of specific and great maritime interest, are two merchant ships encircled by marine life (Haddad and Avissar, 2003; Friedman, 2004; Fig. 45). The floor has a narrow geometric frame comprising a line and a belt of triangles. Unfortunately, the ship in the centre of the carpet (Ship A) was destroyed by the cutting of a cesspit in the Ottoman period, although the original lines have now been reconstructed (Fig. 46). Ship A has its mast tilted from the mast heel to the stem and the sail furled on a yard laid on a support. On the tip of the mast is a pennant, on the stem a small forecastle. The central part of the ship is destroyed, but the stern is intact and features a prolonged railing, forming an overhanging stern gallery terminating at a goose-head sternpost. The two steering oars emerge from a wheel on the quarterdeck. Three sticks feature in the same area, which Hadar (2004) has suggested are devices employed to fasten the mast that he believes was broken. To the right of this wheel is a horizontal line cut by three vertical lines tilted a little to the right; their function remains unexplained.

Fig. 46. Reconstruction of the destroyed merchant ship A, Lod, 3rd century AD

perfectly executed that observers can sense the wind in the sail. The massive tapered mast stands slightly away from the middle, towards the stem, narrowing near its top. It has the same pennant as the former ship, flying in the direction that the vessel is sailing. The mast is secured by six shrouds to the side of the hull, three to the front and three to the back of the ship. They are depicted only on the port side, but it can be presumed that the ship would have relied on a total of 12 shrouds. Each shroud is associated with a pulley with four ropes to stretch and secure it. This is a feature used over centuries on sailing ships and even on steam-powered vessels bearing auxiliary sails. The configuration can still be observed, for example, on a replica of the Amsterdam Dutch East Indiaman, the original of which was built in the 18th century (Fig. 47).

Both ships, as in most mosaics of this kind, are depicted as if floating over the water, to show their deep body and keel. The strakes are emphasised by different nuances of colour to give a detailed representation of the planking. It seems that Ship A with its tilted mast (which does not survive in its entirety) was depicted more finely than the complete example shown under sail (Ship B).

The Ship B’s yard holding the sails, is about one-third of the length of the mast below its tip. It was possible to raise and lower the yard according to the needs of sailing. Above the yard is a small triangular sail. The main square sail, when not in use, would have been folded and tied to the yard. On this mosaic the sail is set and fastened on both sides with braces to the ship’s gunwale. Both sails have horizontal reefing lines. On the stem is a ‘castle’, perhaps the captain’s quarters. This is depicted in the same style as on the partly destroyed ship, a red square

Ship B on the left side of the mosaic, is sailing to the left towards the frame with a set square sail. The mosaic is so 28

ISRAEL: MIGDAL NUNIA, LOD, BETH SHEAN, BETH GUVRIN, BETH LOYA AND HADITHA

Fig. 48. Mosaic depicting a ship with a tilted mast and a decorated plank on the bow; from Sousse, Tunisia, 3rd century AD (Foucher, 1963, 141 fig. 20; Basch, 1987, 486, No. 1106)

Fig. 47. Reconstructed ship Amsterdam: shrouds with pulleys

vessels (Broshi et al., 1985: 113-114; (Fig. 49). The vessel is configured differently in that the steering oars project from a square device. Also the stem is dissimilar, with a prolonged keel reminiscent of the Migdal Nunia ship (Fig. 37).

with a black-and-white frame and in its middle a white circle with a cross. On the strake, close to the stem, is a bright vertical line, possibly an anchor hawser? The two steering oars are identical on both ships. Both are secured on each side of the ship at the quarter-deck to a wheellike device. At the stern is a projecting beak with the same railing as on the other ship, again decorated with a goose-headed sternpost.

On a drawing in the Chapel of St. Vartan in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Fig. 49), a depinto depicts a 1st-2nd century AD boat with a lowered main mast. The mast is cradled by a support device, whose identity is hard to determine, tilted from stem to stern (Gibson, 1994: 3442).

The Lod ships are presented in the finest details: construction, mast, rigging, sails, deck and the projecting head with a bird over the railing on the poop. Of the three categories of merchant vessels classified by Parker (1992: 89) containing 75 tons of cargo (1,500 amphorae), 75-200 tons (2,000-3,000 amphorae) and over 250 tons (more than 6,000 amphorae), the features of the Lod ships are characteristic of medium-range Roman merchant ships of less than 20 m length and 100-200 tonnage, matching Parker’s middle classification. The marine craft in this mosaic especially enrich our understanding of how ships in the Late Roman period were built. As mentioned in the introduction, sunken vessels excavated or surveyed on the seabed are largely destroyed and the best way to reconstruct a ship is therefore to study the excavated hull area and attempt a more complete reconstruction based on iconography, frescoes, Greek and Roman vases, mosaics, reliefs, coins and other source material. The realism in the Lod mosaics, unparalleled elsewhere, makes this option a reality.

Fig. 49. Drawing of a sailing boat from the Church of St Vartan in the Church of The Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem (Photo: David Guerevich)

Parallels A merchant ship bearing some similarities to the ships from Lod is depicted on a mosaic from a tomb in Sousse in Tunisia (Fig. 48) also dated to the 3rd century AD (Basch, 1987, no. 1106). The mosaic is complete, so it is possible to compare the mast, laying on a crutch support, as in the partly damaged ship from Lod. The difference is that the mast in this example is tilted to the stern and not, as on the Lod ship, to the bow. This ship has a similar stern with its railing and swan-headed sternpost decoration, a common feature on Roman period merchant

Another parallel to the two ships is sculpted onto a sarcophagus from Sidon (Hausen, 1979: 36, 174; Fig. 50). There is no triangular sail on top of the mast. The mast is secured with three shrouds and a large square sail propels the ship to the right. The planking is emphasised; on the stern bumpkin is an animal head. The steering oars are attached under the planking without any visible associated securing device.

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MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Fig. 50. Sarcophagus, Sidon, Lebanon, Roman period (Hausen, 1979: 36, 174)

A mosaic from Salzburg, depicting Theseus in the Labyrinth (Daszewski, 1977: figs. 28, 30) dates to the 3rd century AD. The floor was associated with a bath-house in a private villa (Fig. 51, 52) and is presently in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. The carpet is divided into four parts by meanders. The main panel depicts the labyrinth, which is entered on the right side under an arch and from where a red thread runs into a small middle square, where Theseus fights the Minotaur. The labyrinth is closed from three sides by rectangular frames. On the

Fig. 52. Theseus on a boat with Ariadne (Daszewski, 1977, pl. 30)

left and right side in each frame are squares with geometric motifs. In the middle left a panel represents Ariadne and Theseus; on the middle right a panel depicts Ariadne waiting for Theseus. In the middle of a chequer board field is represented the scene of Theseus’ departure

Fig. 51. Mosaic depicting Theseus and the Labyrinth, 3rd century AD (Daszewski, 1977, pl. 28; Kenner, 1963, fig. 7) 30

ISRAEL: MIGDAL NUNIA, LOD, BETH SHEAN, BETH GUVRIN, BETH LOYA AND HADITHA

antiquity, but the depiction of three ships survived nearly intact. As the mosaic was discovered within a private Jewish house, the use of Greek mythological subjects together with Jewish religious symbols, including the menorah in the inscription in the middle panel, remains curious.

to Crete on a boat. Theseus stands next to the mast and helps Ariadne to climb onto the gangway. Two sailors are present, one at the tiller, the other at the stem and both holding a rope. The mast is secured by seven shrouds, of them one to the stem, which is decorated with an ornament resembling a snail, and another to the stern. The main sail is furled to the yard, held by five reefs. On top of the mast is a pennant.

In the upper panel two sailing vessels are depicted. The boat in the top right corner represents Odysseus and the Sirens, a subject often repeated on mosaic pavements (Figs 54, 55). The boat has a rounded keel with a spiral stern turned inwards. The stem ends nearly vertically, rising gently in line with the strake which is enhanced by a bright line of cubes. The mast is in the middle of the boat and Odysseus is tied to it by a net. A rope winds down from the yard. Close to the stem are two sticks, probably cleats.

A similar theme of mosaics, to those described here, was discovered at Pompeii in the House of the Labyrinth and at Nea Paphos, Cyprus (Daszewski, 1977). These discoveries seem to confirm the existence of regional mosaic pattern books and the circulation of designs mentioned in the Introduction. C. THE HOUSE OF KYRIOS LEONTIS, BETH SHEAN

This scene is inspired by Homer’s Odyssey (Odysseus, 132), which relates how “Then they bound me hand and foot and fastened me upright against the mast, took their places and paddled on”. To the left of the vessel rides a nereid on an ichthyocentaur in a stormy sea; the heads of both are missing. The body of the nereid is composed of brown, red, and yellow glass tesserae. The body of the ichthyocentaur is composed of green, brown, and reddish tesserae forming connected circles, ending in a green trident tail. The ichthyocentaur’s feet are hoofed and in front of it is a swimming fish.

Beth Shean is situated about 120 m below sea level where the Jezreel Valley meets the Jordan Valley. Jezreel Valley joins the coastal plain at the Bay of Haifa and runs eastwards to Beth Shean; it connected in antiquity Mesopotamia, Lebanon, and Egypt. Beth Shean was inhabited from the Chalcolithic period onwards. According to various documents and discoveries, the town was an Egyptian stronghold at the end of the 14th and 13th centuries BC. A stela describing the conquest of Beth Shean by Seti I (r. 1290-1279 BC) and another ascribed to his successor, Ramesses II (r. 1279-1213 BC), depicting a goddess with two horns and a worshiper holding a lotus flower, have been found at the site. Beth Shean was also mentioned in Amarna letter EA 289. The Bible narrates that when the country was divided amongst the tribes of Israel, Beth Shean and its surrounding area was inherited by the tribe of Manasseh. King Saul was killed by the Philistines on neighbouring Mount Gilboah (Samuel, 31). During the Hellenistic period the town became known as Scythopolis and remained prosperous into the Early Islamic Umayyad period, when it was called Baysan, Bissan. The classical city was ultimately destroyed by the earthquake of AD 749 (Tsafrir and Foerster, 1997).

In the lower part of the same panel, is depicted a larger vessel, disproportionately larger than Odysseus’ vessel, possibly to emphasise the distance between them. Its size allows the second ship to be more detailed (Fig. 56). It sails in the opposite direction to Odysseus’ vessel. Both ships have the identical spiral stern and nearly vertical stem and a similarly rounded keel. Keels are actually straight, only rounded at the bow and stern, but here in the artist’s depiction it may be the characteristic of a merchant vessel loaded with amphorae, two of which are on the aft deck. These faithfully depict the local Byzantine bag-shaped Palestinian wine amphora (Kingsley, 1994-95: 47-49). The mast is positioned in the middle of the vessel with a furled square sail fastened by ten brails to the yard. The mast is held up by an aft-stay. Close to the stem are two of the same ‘sticks’ as on the Odysseus vessel (perhaps cleats). One sailor faces the stem, holding in both hands a cane and fighting a seamonster, perhaps an ichthyocentaur. The body of the monster resembles the other creature; the upper part of the body and the head are missing. The sailor’s hair is blue and grey, his eyes blue and his brown upper body nude. On the shore a nymph or siren plays a flute. The lower part of her body ends in a bird’s tail of brown and grey glass tesserae. In the upper part of the mosaic floor a fish swims below the Odysseus’ ship, while three more fish circle the scene. Between the ships’ yard and the head of the nymph is a Greek inscription indicating the house owner’s name, Kyrios Leontis.

In the excavations of the House of Kyrios Leontis in 1964 seven stratigraphic levels were identified. In level five a mosaic floor from a large building dated to the 5th century AD was exposed, which originally measured some 300 sq m (Fig. 53). The floors of Room 1 and 2 are of beaten earth and stone slabs. Only Room 3 (66 sq m) was paved in the centre with mosaics, over an area of 8.5 x 3.50 m set on a solid mortar foundation (Fig. 54). The mosaicist used seven colours of stone and seven colours of glass tesserae. The mosaic consists of a rectangular carpet encircled by a guilloche frame, in black and shades of red, and is divided into three panels. On the upper panel is a scene from Greek mythology, on the middle panel a dedication within a wreath, and on the lower panel a Nilotic scene. The mosaic was partly damaged by refurbishment during the building’s occupation in

In the centre of the middle panel is a dedication, which appreciates the owner of the house for decorating the

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MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Fig. 53. The House of Kyrios Leontis, Beth Shean, Israel, 5th century AD (Zori, 1966, 126, fig. 3)

plaited hair and a pointed beard sitting on a black-brown crocodile. The creature moves to the right, towards the frame. The god’s chest is nude and the lower part of his body is covered with a loincloth. He is leaning on an amphora from which water flows down into the lower section, as if filling the sea, where a boat sails. In his outstretched right hand he holds a quail, in his left hand a plant. Behind him, in the left upper corner is a Nilometer with measurements from 11 to 16 (ǿǹ, ǿǺ, ǿī, ǿǻ, ǿǼ, ǿǽ). To its right stands an edifice with three black columns and a red tiled roof and above the building an inscription

floor with mosaics. The dedication is set within a red and black wreath, surrounded by six rows of blue, green, and yellow birds. Each bird has a red ribbon around its neck. In each row are pairs of birds facing each other; between each pair is a small rhombus. The wreath with the inscription covers the centre of the panel, partly covering four rows of the birds. A five-branched menorah is depicted in the fourth row of the dedication. The bottom rectangle depicts a Nilotic scene (Figs. 57, 58). The prominent figure here is the Nile god with 32

ISRAEL: MIGDAL NUNIA, LOD, BETH SHEAN, BETH GUVRIN, BETH LOYA AND HADITHA

Fig. 55. ‘Odysseus and the Sirens’, The House of Kyrios Leontis, Beth Shean, Israel, 5th century AD (Photo: Y. Dagan, by courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

Fig. 56. Mosaic showing the sailing vessel, Beth Shean, Israel, 5th century AD (by courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority) Fig. 54. Mosaic floor in the House of Kyrios Leontis, Beth Shean, Israel, 5th century AD (Zori, 1966, 126, fig. 3)

merchant vessel with a set square sail sails to the right, which somehow seems out of place in a river context (Figs. 57, 58). Possibly this could be interpreted, as if it would be sailing from the Mediterranean into the Nile? The keel of the ship, partly covered by waves, is rounded; the rising stem is turned outwards. The stern, partly damaged, rises as high as the stem, with a spiral-shaped ending turning inwards. Two parallel steering oars emerge from the gunwale, over which along all its length is a railing. The mast is slightly closer to the stern, with a

indicates the town’s name ‘AȁǼȄAȃǻȇIA’ (Alexandria). On a pasture beneath the town a bull attempts to escape a crocodile. Beneath the Nile god and the bull is a bird, a big leaf, and a lotus flower. At the bottom of the panel another

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MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Fig. 57. Nile motif, Beth Shean (photo: Y. Dagan, by courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

stands a sailor holding onto the mast. On the foredeck appear to be two additional amphorae with black tops, all of which resembles the local Palestinian LR4 GazaAshkelon form (Kingsley, 2004b: fig. 21), but set upside down, possibly for safe stowage. Actually this kind of ship could be loaded with some hundreds of amphorae, but to illustrate the cargo the mosaicist depicted only few. In front of the ship, in direction of sailing, jumps a large fish over the waves. Parallels The two ships in the upper panel (Figs. 55-56) display some similarity with the ship from Migdal Nunia (Fig. 38). The stylised image of the ship with the rounded keel, high stern turned inwards and near-vertical stem, seem to derive from the same pattern book. Or could the mosaicist have been familiar with the Migdal Nunia ship (four century older) and used it as a template? The exception is the appendage to the keel at the stem, which is pointed on the Migdal Nunia ship, to form a cutwater.

Fig. 58. Boat from the Nilotic scene, Beth Shean, Israel, 5th century AD (photo: by courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

The ship on the lower panel (Fig. 58) in the Nilotic scene, partly resembles the ship from the Madaba Map mosaic (Fig. 73) on the Dead Sea (the vessel at right, south). The sail on the Madaba ship is destroyed, but the rounded body and the stern with the spiral ending and turned inside are comparable. The difference lies in the keel next to the steering oars, where the body is not rounded.

square sail fastened by rigging lines to the hull. The sail billows to the right in the direction of sailing. The hull is rounded and high, with two rows of five portholes. On the deck, to the left of the mast is an amphora, to the right

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Gibelin or Giblin in the 12th century, and Fulk of Anjou, the Crusader King of Jerusalem (r. 1131-1143), built a fortress there, which was later taken by the Knights Hospitallers. The remains of the Crusader fortress destroyed by Saladin in 1191 still survive. The name of the town was preserved under Ottoman rule in the form of Beth Jibril, meaning the ‘House of Gabriel’ (Vilnay, 1965: 234).

D. THE CHURCH OF MAHAT-EL-ARADI, BETH GUVRIN Beth Guvrin is located about halfway between Hebron and Ashkelon. Seven roads converged at this point from the Hellenistic to the Roman period, five marked by milestones. Two aqueducts supplied the city’s water: a 25 km-long installation incoming from the Hebron Mountains in the east and one from the north, of which only a 3 km-long section was found. Today the site has been developed into a major tourist attraction due to its renowned rock-cut burial caves, dating from the Roman period into the Byzantine and the Early Islamic periods (Kloner, 1993, 195-197).

The Church of Mahat-el-Aradi (Fig. 59), dated to the 6th century, is located in modern Kibbutz Beth Guvrin, some 200 m north of the Roman town. The name Mahat-elAradi means the ‘Parade Ground’, and it may be guessed that it has been used as such (Baramki, 1972: 130). The building complex includes a basilica and chapel, the former consisting of a nave with an apse and two aisles. The aisles were paved on a solid foundation with polychrome mosaics composed of geometric patterns, which formed four large round medallions in the southern aisle and four large octagons in the northern aisle (Ovadiah, 1975: 214). Most of the mosaic was damaged by iconoclasts in the Early Islamic period.

The town, located in the territory of Judaea, was inhabited from the First Temple period (9th century BC). After the destruction by Babylon it was re-settled by the Edomites. From the Second Temple period (516 BC to AD 70) until the time of its destruction during the Bar Kochba Revolt (AD 132-135) it was a Jewish city (with the exception of the 3rd-1st century BC, during which time it was a Hellenistic town, after being conquered by the Hasmonaean Jewish dynasty, which forced its citizens to be forcibly converted to Judaism).

The entrance to the southern aisle leads from the narthex through a door, of which the threshold is still in situ. The floor is paved with a rectangular mosaic surrounded by a frame composed of two white strips and a complex guilloche pattern between them. The focal point of the carpet lies is in four round medallions, of which only three are preserved (Fig. 60). Each is encircled by eight squares; the space between the squares is filled by rhomboids, triangles and other geometric motifs.

Herod the Great was born at Beth Guvrin in 73 BC. In 40 BC the nearby town of Mereshah (Marisa mentioned in Joshua, 15: 44) was destroyed and Beth Guvrin assumed the position of capital of the district of Idumea, becoming a prosperous Roman town inhabited by Jews, Christians and pagans. Septimius Severus visited Beth Guvrin in the 2nd century AD and granted its inhabitants special privileges, officially renaming it Eleutheropolis, the ‘City of Liberty’. After its destruction in the Bar Kochba Revolt, the city expanded northwards, where large public buildings were constructed including a large amphitheatre. Talmudic literature mentions several Jewish sages, such as Rabbi Yonatan Ben Uziel (Hezser, 2001:250; Urman, 1988), as residents.

The first square is surrounded by polychrome circles. Inside, are depicted two peacocks holding wreaths of flowers in their beaks over a kantharos filled with fruit. In the squares surrounding the first medallion are the fragmentary remains of animals and flowers. The second medallion is encircled by a wave crest between two white circles. Within it are a lion and its prey. The squares surrounding this medallion were decorated with animals, flowers, kantharoi and fruit. Most of the images of animals in the mosaic have been deliberately mutilated, but their outlines remain discernible. The third medallion has a circular frame, similar to the first medallion. Of the squares, triangles, and rhomboids surrounding it, only four remain; two of these are mutilated to the extent that only an elephant and an ibex can be recognised.

In the Early Christian period the town became a bishopric, that was included as one of the five Cities of Excellence in the 4th-century province cited by Ammianus Marcellinus (Res Gestium, 14.8.11-12). The Expositio Totius Mundi et Genitum, dated to c. AD 350 provides a detailed description of the cities of Phoenicia, Syria and Palestine and mentioned Eleutheropolis (Stern, 1980: 495-498). The church mosaic at Ma’in in Jordan depicts several towns, including Eleutheropolis (De Vaux, 1938: 254; Piccirillo, 1985: 345-349; 1986: 58-60). In the Church of St. Stephen (cf. Chapter 6B) Eleutheropolis is again depicted according to its geographical location south of Diospolis (Lod) and north of Askalon (Piccirillo and Alliata, 1994: 177, 182, 21724). Once again, the 6th century Madaba Map shows Eleutheropolis as an important town with a colonnaded circular building, which Avi-Yonah (1954: 64) has interpreted as the amphitheatre (cf. Chapter 6A). During the Early Islamic period the site’s former ancient name, Beth Jibrin, was restored, and the town remained well known in the medieval period. The Crusaders named it

The third medallion from the east is filled with the scene of a boat bearing two sailors (Fig. 61). The upper part of the medallion is damaged as are the heads of both sailors. The boat is most probably a sailing vessel with a deep hull, the stern more elevated than the stem, sailing to the right. The mosaicist emphasised the construction of the hull by accentuating the planking by brighter and darker lines. On the left side of the boat are two steering oars and the remains of a kneeling oarsman. The man at right stands holding a stick. Ovadiah (1987: 19) has argued that the scene is Biblical in composition and that the sailors are thrusting Jonah towards the jaws of a seamonster. Baramki (1972: 137) perceives a rower holding

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MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Fig. 59. The Church of Mahat-el-Aradi Beth Guvrin, Israel, 6th century AD (Baramki, 1972, fig. 2)

Fig. 60. Mosaic floor, southern aisle, Beth Guvrin, Israel, 6th century AD (Ovadia, 1987. pl. XI)

the oar and the other sailor as leaning over the edge of the boat repelling a sea-monster. The waves indicate a calm see and are highlighted by white lines. To differentiate

the sky, it is depicted by tesserae laid parallel to the circular frame. The fourth medallion, except for the frame with the corner rhomboid, is completely destroyed. 36

ISRAEL: MIGDAL NUNIA, LOD, BETH SHEAN, BETH GUVRIN, BETH LOYA AND HADITHA

The second octagon bears a sailing vessel depiction (Fig. 63). The shape of the hull is heavily rounded, bowl-like, and is stylistically very similar to the boats of the mosaic at the Church of St. Stephen, with the stem and stern raised to the same height (Fig. 76). The strake under the gunwale is emphasised in brighter colours. On the gunwale, between the rudder and stern, are two sticks each made of six tesserae, to delineate a railing. The boat sails to the left of the picture. In the middle of the boat is the mast with the yard near its top. The sail is twisted snakelike around the yard, in the same unconventional manner as in the Dead Sea boat representation on the Madaba map mosaic (Fig. 73). This mosaicist may have derived its pattern from the same source as the Madaba artist, considering that the two mosaics are more or less contemporary (the 6th century AD). A line is hanging from the right side of the yard, most probably a brace designed to control the yard and thus the sail. The two men look in the direction of sailing. The man on the left side is fishing, and the man at the stern sits holding the steering oars. The white tesserae depicting the waves are rougher than in the example in the southern panel.

Fig. 61. The medallion with the boat, southern aisle, Beth Guvrin, Israel, 6th century AD (Ovadia, 1987. pl. XII)

The third octagon illustrates Jonah in the belly of the whale with his head outside. Under the whale is a Greek inscription ‘ǿȍȃǹȈ’ (Jonah). The middle square creates a cross between the second and third octagon, depicted by a rope pattern with eight knots. As in the southern aisle, here too the last octagon is completely destroyed.

The northern aisle (Fig. 62) is also paved with mosaics, surrounded by a border composed of two white strips and a complex guilloche pattern with squares. As in the southern aisle, it is divided into main subjects depicted in octagons. On all four sides of the octagons are squares with swastikas and between them one square with a woven pattern. In the middle of the aisle, five squares form a cross. The rest of the field is filled by hexagons and half hexagons. The top octagon has a similar design as the example in the southern aisle: a kantharos flanked by two peacocks. The panels besides the octagon contain lobsters and fishes.

Parallels The form of the Beth Guvrin mosaic ship-hulls may be compared to the boat from the fishing scene from Lepcis Magna, now in the Tripoli Museum, Libya (Fig. 64).

Fig. 62. The northern aisle, Beth Guvrin, Israel, 6th century AD (Baramki, 1972, Fig. 3) 37

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

E. BETH LOYA Horvat Beth Loya is situated 5 km south-east of Beth Guvrin (Chapter 5D) and belonged to the region of the ancient Roman town of Eleutheropolis (its history is mentioned in Chapter 5D). During the construction of a road in 1961 two burial caves dating from the end of the Iron Age were discovered. At Horvat Beth Loya, as also in the vicinity, many subterranean caves have been found dating to the Hellenistic and Roman periods. During a survey of the Judaean hills and the surrounding area of the burial caves in 1970, Y. Dagan proved that the area was inhabited between the Hellenistic and Mamluk periods. On a hill some 400 m above sea level, a complex including a Byzantine walled monastery with a church has been discovered, and excavations took place in 1983 and 1986 on behalf of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, directed by J. Patrich and Y. Tsafrir (1993a: 213; 1993b: 265-272).

Fig. 63. The octagon in the northern aisle, Beth Guvrin, Israel, 6th century AD (by courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

The monastery and church are located at the western end of the settlement (Fig. 65). The basilica church is 20.40 m long and 13.90 m wide, the internal area measuring 18.60 x 12.10 m. A mosaic inscription dates the church to AD 500. The entrance to the church leads from a narthex to the nave. The aisles may also have been entered by two narrow separate doors from the narthex. The nave is divided from the aisles by 60 cm-wide stylobates. From the narthex to the south is an entrance to a baptistery (3.60 x 4.10 m), which may also have been entered from the southern aisle. Annexed to the northern church wall is a chapel (4.20 x 7.50 m) with an entrance from the northern aisle. To the west of the chapel are ruins of a room, 2.50 x 2.70 m, with 2 m thick walls. The excavator believes that this was the bell tower. The church was in use until the 8th century (Patrich et al., 1985). Mosaic floors pave the narthex, baptistery and chapel, covering 220 m square. The faces of humans and animals have been destroyed by iconoclasts here too, as happened in many other churches, this time by order of Umayyad Caliph Yazid II in AD 721. The main composition, however, remained intact. In the Early Islamic period the damage was repaired, possibly by clergy, using a jumble of the original tesserae. Four Greek inscriptions are incorporated into the mosaics: two on each side of the central carpet, one near the entrance and one below the apse, two of them being dedications. The inscription in the baptistery is taken from the Septuagint version of Proverbs 13.9, “The light of the righteous rejoice”; on the belltower floor the text derives from the Septuagint version of Psalm 121.8, “The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in” (Patrich et al., 1993a: 213).

Fig. 64. Fishing scene, detailing netting from a boat, Lepcis Magna, Roman period Libya. (Archaeological Museum, Tripoli) Both boats are comparable to those in the Church of St. Stephen (Chapter 6B), where less detail is presented. The latter are more stylised, showing only the outline without details. The stem and stern are raised to the same height, which may indicate that the vessels are double-ended. Such boats remained in use for several centuries (Jesnick, 1997: figs 96, 133). It is important to stress the unconventional mode of the sail being wound snakelike around the yard of the boat in the northern aisle, in the same way as on the northern boat of the Madaba map mosaic (Fig. 73). There it gives the impression that the mosaicist wanted to sustain the continuation of the waves of the River Jordan within the picture, but the reason must be different for the boat in the northern aisle of Beth Guvrin. Or could it simply be the case that the Madaba Map was known to the mosaicist in Palestine and he found it desirable to copy?

The central carpet in the nave, originally decorated with medallions formed by wine branches, peacocks, birds and human figures, is badly preserved. It was surrounded by a frame of dark tesserae, three rows of bright tesserae, and a geometric vine. In the narthex a wide frame depicted animals and birds among wine branches. Surrounding this carpet was a wide frame with a band of medallions of acanthus leaves, representing animals, which are badly

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ISRAEL: MIGDAL NUNIA, LOD, BETH SHEAN, BETH GUVRIN, BETH LOYA AND HADITHA

Fig. 65. Plan of the Church complex, Beth Loya, Israel, AD 500 (Patrich et al., 1993: 226)

Fig. 66. Ship from the Church, Beth Loya, Israel, AD 500 (by courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

damaged. In the middle of the short floor sides were Greek dedications (Patrich et al., 1993: 213).

and squares with animals. At the entrance to each aisle is a basket holding fruit, flanked in the northern aisle by two kingfishers and in the southern aisle by two pheasants. In the middle area is a large medallion, 1.47 m in diameter. In the southern medallion are two fishermen and in the northern medallion a sailing vessel (Fig. 66).

The two aisles incorporate similar geometric patterns, framed by two rows of dark and bright tesserae. The geometric patterns are composed of two rows of circles

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MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

The sailing vessel has a rounded hull with the stern slightly higher, the mast with a pennant. The rounded keel, in line with the stem and stern, makes the impression that the artist adapted the ship’s form to the limited space within the round medallion. The planking is emphasised by different colours, the keel is covered by waves. On top of the gunwale is a railing. In the middle of the boat is the mast with double fore- and aft stays. The yard is attached close to the top of the mast by a massive ring, which enabled the sail to be raised and lowered as well as turned into the wind. The open square sail is connected to the yard at six points. The vessel is sailing to the left, visibly propelled by the sail. On the right side of the ship, next to the stern, sits the oarsman holding two steering oars with rectangular blades. The oar-shafts are shown through the blades. On the left side, close to the stem, stands a fisherman with a fishing rod pulling in a large fish from the sea. The boat, mainly the sail, is depicted with shadows and shown from bird’s-eye view to give a three-dimensional perspective.

The room containing the mosaic floor was possibly part of an ecclesiastical complex, most likely a church (6th century AD). Only the north-western corner of the room, with the mosaic pavement built on bedrock, has been preserved to a height of approximately 10 cm. Taking into account the intact part of the mosaic, it originally paved an area of about 5.25 x 4.25 m. Today the mosaic is exhibited in the National Maritime Museum, Haifa (Fig. 68).

Parallels The ships from the Church of St. Stephen (Fig. 76), which are depicted in the mosaic more or less schematically, share the same round hull as the Beth Loya vessel, where the ship is more detailed. While here the mast with the yard and the railing over the gunwale are shown in more detail, the St. Stephen boats are only stylised. The rounded hull has some similarity with the rowing vessel ‘Corbita’ from the floor mosaic in Althiburus (Fig. 67).

Fig. 68. Mosaic, Haditha, Israel, 6th century AD (photo: R. Kotzer, by courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

The mosaic carpet features two borders separated by a frame of two black lines, each composed of one row of black cubes; between them are two rows of pink cubes, the same colour as the background of the entire carpet. The outer border is geometrically patterned with both larger and smaller rhomboids and a circular, woven square of black, red and pink tesserae. The inner border is some 60 cm wide and represents a Nilotic scene. Its lower part, taking up less than a third of the inner border space, depicts a stream with fish in light blue colour. In the background of the panel are lotus/papyrus flowers made of opaque glass cubes. The scene includes fishes, a water buffalo, a vulture and a naked man with a stick in his raised right hand defending the buffalo from a crocodile (damaged). The buffalo stands in the stream with its front legs bent, struggling to escape its attacker. The head of the buffalo is missing. In the corner of the room is a representation of a walled town with six towers, two rectangular houses with red roofs and doors and one round house with windows and a blue roof. The town can be entered through an arched gate in the wall. Below the town is an inscription in Greek reading ‘ǼīȊȆȉȅȈ’ (Egypt). Two ducklings stand amongst the lotus/papyrus flowers and fish in the flowing water

Fig. 67. Ship ‘Corbita’ from the floor mosaic in Althiburus (by courtesy of S. Kingsley)

F. THE HADITHA MOSAIC The small village of Haditha is situated some 5 km northeast of Lod. In 1940 Sa’id Yusuf, the Mukhtar of the village, along with A. Khamis, reported to the Department of Antiquities the discovery of a mosaic pavement under the village threshing-floor. The site was excavated in the same year by J. Ory, then Inspector of Antiquities for the coastal area (Avi-Yonah, 1972).

Further is within this panel a merchant sailing ship with a deep hull and an almost identical pointed stem and stern (Fig. 69). This style of ship, if realistically rendered here, is of a very basic type that was known from the Bronze Age onwards in riverine environments, and could be used 40

ISRAEL: MIGDAL NUNIA, LOD, BETH SHEAN, BETH GUVRIN, BETH LOYA AND HADITHA

Fig. 69. Detail of ship, Haditha, Israel, 6th century AD (photo: R. Kotzer, by courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

Fig. 70. North-east chapel, Qasr-el- Libia, Libya, Roman period (Alföldi-Rosenbaum, 1971, 149 pl. LV)

without the need to turn the vessel in a narrow waterway, by simply changing the position of the steering oars (i.e. the ship could be steered forward or backwards without turning). Under the stem is a cutwater (cf. Chapter 5A). The mast stands in the middle of the boat, fastened to the stem by a strong forestay and to the stern by a double backstay.

church of Qasr-el-Lebia in Cyrenaica is resembling the preserved mosaic at the Haditha church in terms of subject matter (Alföldi-Rosenbaum, 1971: 149ff). There the Nilotic mosaic is a rectangle in the centre of the whole floor. It is encircled with a wide guilloche frame on which graze dears, birds, and other animals, as if in a meadow. There, along the guilloche are medallions with Greek inscriptions. This scene is oriented for observation from all sides and encircles the centre, the most important subject. Around it is another wide ornamental frame.

The boat is loaded with nine amphorae, as one of the Beth Shean ships, possibly depicting LR4 Gaza-Ashkelon storage jars stowed upside down. The sail is blown-out as if propelling the boat in the opposite direction, to the left, and the vessel sailing with its stern forwards, or that it is beached with the sail still hoisted. On each side of the boat sits a naked man. The man on the left side, close to the stern, holds a steering oar in each hand, his face turned forwards. The man on the right leans onto the stem, with his right hand outstretched to a man standing on the shore among lotus plants. The mosaic was damaged in this section and has been repaired in antiquity, but not reconstructed. To the right, only a small part of the floor is preserved showing only the hind part of a large bird.

In the right part of the Qasr-el-Lebia panel (Fig. 70) is a boat, stylised and resembling the shape of a ‘nutshell’, perhaps a fishing boat without a mast and sail, floating in water and surrounded by lotus flowers. In the boat two men look in opposite directions. The man at right attempts to catch a duck, the man at the left, with a bare torso, spears a fish with a trident. Below the boat are fishes. On the left side of the panel is a crocodile trying to seize a cow; a man standing between the boat and the cow holds the cow’s tail, as if to rescue it. Nilotic scenes are known from the Hellenistic through the Byzantine periods in Europe, the Near East and Africa, with various variations, but always having similar composition: motifs of lotus and papyrus flowers, fishes, birds, buffalos, cows, crocodiles, tigers and with one or more fishing boats, sailing vessels, or rowing boats, appear in variations in nearly all of the Nilotic compositions. The nudity of men depicted in ecclesiastical buildings indicates that the mosaicists followed patterns handed to them from earlier pagan times and that ‘Romanised’ theme matter remained artistically acceptable (Avi-Yonah: 1972: 118-122). The nudity appears inter alia also in the church of St. Stephen (Chapter 6B) and in private houses, as the House of Kyrios Leontis at Beth Shean (Zori: 1966: 123; cf. Chapter 5C) and in Thugga (Poinssot: 1963: fig. 16).

In the centre of the mosaic, of which only the right corner is preserved, are medallions containing Greek inscriptions and between them wine branches. The inscriptions are oriented eastwards, indicating the orientation of the building and the typical direction of the main church altar facing east (Avi-Yonah, 1976: 62ff). A pastoral scene in fine and delicate colours, showing and combinations of shades of tesserae – pink, light red, and brown, with light blue for shadows – gains deepness. Shadows are represented beneath the fish, in the folds of the sail and below the boat. Parallels Parallels to the boat and the Nilotic scene are ample (Fig. 70). The mosaic pavement in the north-east chapel of the

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MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

6 JORDAN: THE MADABA MOSAIC MAP, UMM AL-RASAS AND ZAY AL-GHARBY 313, which permitted the toleration of Christianity in the Empire. Licinius renewed the persecution of Christians and with growing differences between them he was put to death in AD 325, following his defeat at the Battle of Chrysopolis in modern Turkey (Avi-Yona and Shatzman, 1975: 136, 270). Shortly afterwards Constantine’s mother Helena (St. Helena) made the pilgrimage to the Holy Land and visited many of the sacred places mentioned in the Bible. Apparently guided by religious visions she always found, what she thought, she was looking for. To commemorate her discoveries, Constantine erected many basilicas in the Middle East (Dockser Marcus, 2001: 10ff).

In the vicinity of Mount Nebo, the physical site where many Jewish and Christian worshippers believe that Moses looked into, but was refused entry into the ‘Promised Land’, are numerous sites that venerate biblical events. Many also contain major mosaics, which are important for the current study because textually and graphically they relate to cities, settlements, mountains, rivers, and seas. A. THE MADABA MOSAIC MAP On the Jordanian Plateau of Moab in the vicinity of Mount Nebo, some 780 m above sea level, is the ancient city of Madaba. The Church of St. George in the northwest section of the city was constructed in 1896 on the remains of a Byzantine church, built during the prosperous reign of the emperor Justinian I (AD 527565). When the development of the new church began, an extraordinary floor mosaic composed of a decorated map was uncovered (Fig. 71): a unique and important piece of mosaic art from the 6th century AD.

Moab and Mount Nebo were visited by groups of pilgrims as early as in the 4th century AD, with the purpose to follow in the footsteps of Moses and to peer into the Promised Land from the hallowed point from where Moses stood before his death. Moab is still an important centre of pilgrimage and tourism today and is inhabited by Christian and Muslims alike. The sources on which the cartographic information of the Madaba Map were mainly based are the Bible and the Onomasticon compiled by the 4th-century church historian Eusebius, which presumably incorporated maps. Both of them created the general atmosphere of the geographical history of the Holy Land (FreemanGrenville et al., 2003). Avi-Yonah (1954: 40) argued that the mosaicists derived their information for the Dead Sea section from St. Jerome’s Questiones Hebraicae and the book of Genesis 10.19, which described from where waters of the hot springs flowed into the Dead Sea.

The Byzantine church was divided into a nave and three aisles, a layout to which the present church only partly corresponds. The mosaic panel originally measured 15.60 x 6.00 m (only some 25% of the floor is preserved today), and is essentially a map covering the geographical area from Lebanon to Egypt, with Jerusalem at its centre. Textually and pictorially it identifies 157 villages, towns, and cities. Avi-Yonah (1954, 26-27) estimated that the mosaic was composed of 2.3 million cubes, which makes it roughly comparable to the apse mosaic in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, where some 2.5 million cubes were used. The mosaic panel is orientated to the east and covers the area between the northern and southern walls. The map has geographical importance and a clear theological message, making Jerusalem the centre of the Church and the universe.

Only in 1896 did Abuna Kleofas Kikilides realise the true significance of the map for the history of the region. In March 1897 he printed with the help of a Franciscan friar born in Constantinople a booklet referring to the map. The Dominican fathers M.J. Lagrange and H. Vincent, after visiting the site, published a detailed historicalgeographical study of the map in the Revue Biblique (VII 1898: 424-451). Father J. Germer-Durand, of the

Constantine the Great (r. AD 306-337) with his brotherin-law Licinius, issued the famous Edict of Milan in AD

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JORDAN: THE MADABA MOSAIC MAP, UMM AL-RASAS AND ZAY AL-GHARBY

Fig. 71. Madaba Map mosaic, Jordan, 6th century AD (by courtesy of Prof. Piccirillo)

Assumptionist Fathers, published a photographic album of the map with his own pictures. C. Clermont-Ganneau, the well-respected Orientalist, announced the discovery in Paris at the Academie des Science et Belles Lettres (Madaba Map Centenary 1897-1997, internet). The present study’s special interest in the Madaba Map lies in the section that shows the River Jordan with two river boats and with two sailing ships on the Dead Sea. The Jordan River and the Dead Sea divide the entire picture horizontally. The river is shown as a ribbon winding through villages and the countryside from Lebanon to the Dead Sea. The waves in the river are depicted as lines between the riverbanks and in them swimming fish.

Fig. 72. Madaba mosaic – two river boats on the River, Jordan, 6th century AD (by courtesy of Prof. Piccirillo)

The two boats on the River Jordan (Fig. 72) display a deep wooden body with a hint of planking. The mast stands upright in the centre and to it is connected a long horizontal rod reaching over the riverbanks, where it seems to be attached to short, strong pillars. Hillman (2002) and Hadar (2004) have suggested that the vessels are river ferries using a pole or cable attached to the mast and to both sides of the riverbanks, to prevent the vessels from being swept away by currents. The vessels lack rudders, sails and oars. Alternatively is it possible that the pole is a device to tow or push the boat up and down the stream? This also raises the question whether the identification of the ‘mast’ as such is correct, or whether it is an attachment for moving the vessels. The vessels appear unmanned. The left one has a round body and gives the impression of being empty. The vessel to the right has a square body and looks heavily loaded, most probably with fish. The depiction of these vessels conveys how boats were operated on rivers, perhaps as commercial boats or ferries, and indicates that these

remote inland waterways were in the Byzantine period not bereft of economic value. The section of the map depicting the Dead Sea illustrates two merchant ships (Fig. 73). In each are two sailors, their facial features destroyed by religious iconoclasts. The destroyed area has been randomly filled with mosaic cubes. In contrast to the River Jordan, which abounds in fish, in the Dead Sea no marine life is visible, graphically reflecting the realism of this water’s name. The waves reveal a calm sea, but between the two ships the water is choppy. The mast on both ships is positioned at the centre, its lower part hidden by a heap of covered merchandise. Both ships are sailing south, towards the right side of the picture. Two steering oars protrude below the gunwale through a round hole. The oars show the shaft extending beyond the oar blade. The boats vary

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On the mosaic in the House of Kyrios Leontis (Chapter 5C), the vessel’s sternpost curves in the same way as in the destroyed northern Madaba Dead Sea boat. The hull of the riverboat on the northern side of the Jordan River (at left) is built similarly, with a rounded keel, as also the ships on the mosaic in the Church of St. Stephen (Chapter 5B). The gunwale on the St. Stephan ship is rounded with a raised stem and stern, in contrast to the Jordan boat, which has a straight gunwale. Interestingly, the boat from the octagonal medallion from Beth Guvrin (Chapter 5D, Fig. 63) possesses similar characteristics, the sail being furled around the yard.

Fig. 73. Madaba mosaic – two sailing vessels on the Dead Sea, Jordan, 6th century AD (by courtesy of Prof. Piccirillo)

B. THE CHURCH OF ST. STEPHEN, UMM AL-RASAS (KASTRON MEFA’A) slightly in design. Both have an elevated, prolonged stern. The sternpost on the left boat ends in the form of a spiral turned outwards; the sternpost on the right boat turns inwards, also in spiral form. The stems seem to be similar. The keel is uncommonly prolonged to form an extension of the stern. This shipbuilding configuration is not immediately logical. If it would have been positioned at the stem, it would give the impression of being a cutwater. One wonders whether the mosaicist got the facts of his basic template wrongly laid out, or that it is possible that the vessel on the left side is not a sailing boat and that the sailor is rowing with oars, which would make the position of the cutwater likely and also explain the unusually furled sail. In this case the boat would be sailing in the opposite direction, northwards.

The town of Umm al-Rasas is located some 30 km southeast of Madaba on a plateau dominating the landscape and is therefore visible from a considerable distance. The ruins of the town cover approximately three hectares. They consist of a walled area and a fortified camp, which extends 150 m in the east – west direction and 120 m in the direction north to south. To the north is an open area of land measuring roughly one quarter of the walled area. Some 1.3 km to the north of the fortified zone is a 14 m high tower dating to the 6th century AD next to ruins of several buildings and rock-hewn water cisterns (Piccirillo et al., 1986: 343). The ruins of three churches are situated in the open area: the churches of St. Stephen, of the Bishop Sergius and of the Priest Wa’il. The ancient name ‘ȂEɎǹǹ’ appears on the mosaic floors in the Church of St. Stephen. The toponym is known from Roman, Arabic and biblical sources. Eusebius (Onomasticon 128, 21) quoted a Roman military unit as stationed at Mephaat, which was identified with the Levitical city of Mepha’at in the territory of the tribe of Reuben on the Plain of Moab (Joshua 13.21, 13.37; Jeremiah 48.21). In the Byzantine period the town belonged to a flourishing Christian community, as part of the bishopric of Madaba.

In the left boat the seated oarsman holds the rudder tillers in both hands. To the right of the mast and the heaped merchandise – perhaps salt, bitumen or the balsam for which the shores of the Dead Sea were economically famous in antiquity – sits his companion, his right hand outstretched as if in discussion. The sail, if it is a sail as mentioned above, is furled around the yard like a snake, making it technically impossible to be worked. It is believed that the artist wanted to give the sail an artistic form reflecting the picture of the waves. Such a phenomenon is also evident on the Beth Guvrin ship (Chapter 5D, Fig. 63). The boat to the right sails with an open sail. On the left side, above the destroyed figure of the oarsman, can be seen a small part of the yard with the sail. On the right side of the boat, on the stem, is a part of a forestay. In this boat are standing sailors on both sides of the merchandise. The vessels in the Dead Sea are depicted with many important details. The marine life illustrated on the Madaba Map expresses the general prosperity of the Byzantine period, when fishing and overland trade in the region flourished.

The mid-19th century German explorer U. Seetzen (1854: 352) described how his guide, Bey Maijub, told him about an extraordinary ruin of a walled city, still well preserved, on the high plateau north of Wadi el-Mujib, called the ruins of Umm al-Rasas, which means ‘the mother of lead’. The guide compared the site to Jerash, having also only one gate to approach from the north, but being more beautiful. Seetzen began his journey through the Middle East in 1802 and reached Yemen in 1811, where he mysteriously disappeared. In his book, Reisen durch Syrien, Palästina, Phönicien, die TransjordanLänder, Arabia, Petrea und Unter-Ägypten, which was published after his death in 1854, he describes the magnificence of Umm al-Rasas, only as it was described by his guide. The site itself was first visited in 1816 by J.S. Buckingham (1825: 104), who considered the place to be unimportant, but was impressed by the masonry consisting of large stones. The ruins were later explored by various scientists, such as G. Robinson (1837: 187ff)

Parallels The Haditha Mosaic, Israel (Chapter 5F) dates to the same period. In its vessel the oarsman sits, holding the steering oars in both hands and a crew member communicates with a person on the shore. The boat shares many similarities but has a device resembling a cutwater, which the Madaba boats lack. 44

JORDAN: THE MADABA MOSAIC MAP, UMM AL-RASAS AND ZAY AL-GHARBY

Fig. 74. Church complex, Umm al-Rasas, Jordan 8th century AD (Piccirillo and Attiyat, 1986, fig. 1)

and N. Gluek in 1933 (1934: 39ff); all found the place important and remarkable. The first archaeological excavations were carried out in 1986 by the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum with the collaboration of Dr. A. Hadidi, Director of the Department of Antiquities in Jordan. On the northern edge of the ruins an edifice with two apses was singled out for investigation. The complex contained the two side by side churches, the church of Bishop Sergius and the church of St. Stephen, connected by a common stairway. Both churches incorporated mosaic floors and a paved courtyard. The walls of the churches are preserved to a height of 1 – 3 m (Piccirillo et al., 1986: 343). The northern church, the Church of Bishop Sergius, is a building with a single nave, the floor of which is paved by a mosaic carpet. In front of the altar, between two lambs, is a dedicatory inscription in a medallion, which enables the floor to be dated to AD 587 (Piccirillo et al., 1986: 346). The Church of St. Stephen (Figs. 74, 75, 76) is situated on slightly higher ground than the Church of Bishop Sergius. In both churches the altar is elevated by two steps above the nave. The mosaic is laid on an earlier one, which is only partially preserved. On the upper mosaic are two inscriptions: the first on the steps to the presbytery, naming ‘Mafaa’, dates the floor to AD 785, providing key evidence for an organised Christian community in the Early Islamic period (Piccirillo et al., 1986: 347); the second, in the presbytery, in a geometric decoration, again dates the building of the church and provides the names of Bishops Job, Sergius II, and of the

Fig. 75. Mosaic floor, The Church of St Stephen, Umm al-Rasas, Jordan, 8th century AD (Piccirillo and Attiyat, 1986, 219) 45

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Fig. 76. Detail of boat, The Church of St Stephen, Umm al-Rasas, Jordan, 8th century AD (Piccirillo and Attiyat, 1986, 230)

wider with geometric designs. On the northern side are depicted interlaced squares with fruits, baskets and flowers and on the southern side are squares and circles with trees, flowers and fruits.

mosaicist himself, Staurachios of Hesban – the first mosaicist known from this region. The inscription displaying the names of the cities (see below) gives the mosaic importance second only to the Madaba Map. The mosaic in the nave is a large rectangular floor with three borders and a narrow woven frame between each. In the main central area, opposite the inscription, are depicted two leaves, from which descend branches with leaves and grapes, forming 11 rows of medallions, four in each row. Most of the pictures in the medallions were destroyed by Early Islamic iconoclasts; in a few of them may be recognised agricultural, hunting, and pastoral scenes (Piccirillo, 1993: 238). In the first border surrounding the main carpet, is a Nilotic motif with impressive eight boats in a river, each sailing to a town, so creating a balance of one edifice positioned between two boats sailing towards it. Between the boats are fish, birds, lotus flowers, hunters or fishermen and ten towns whose toponyms belong to northern Egypt. The boats are each similar to one another, but not identical (Fig. 76). Their hulls and keels are crescentshaped. The keels are emphasised and not covered by waves. The bow is pointed, the stern higher and slightly rounded to the inside of the boat. Each boat has two prominent steering oars indicating the direction of sailing (Hillmann, 2002: 14). The steering shafts extend beyond the steering blade. Only two boats, one at the church entrance, the other under the inscription, are sailing vessels. In the centre of both boats stands the mast with the sail bellowing under the power of wind. At the entrance to the church is a boat sailing towards the town Kasin. It displays two ropes falling from the top of the mast into the boat. The second border is a historical document in its own right (Fig. 75). On the northern side are inscribed the names of eight Palestinian cities and on the southern side the names of seven Jordanian cities (Piccirillo et al., 1986: 348; Piccirillo: 1993: 238). The outer border is

Fig. 77. Fishing scene from the Bardo Museum, Tunis, Roman period (Fantar, 1994, 122)

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JORDAN: THE MADABA MOSAIC MAP, UMM AL-RASAS AND ZAY AL-GHARBY

by a narrow triangular frame. The area of the chancel between the apse and the nave is rectangular, with a pastoral motif and is encircled by a wide polychrome ribbon around it. In the centre of this floor is a cluster of acanthus leaves, from which wine branches with grapes issue forth, to surround the composition. Left of the acanthus plant are two grazing cows, to the right a single cow, all destroyed except their legs.

Parallels A comparable example to the boats is the fishing scene (Fig. 77) on a mosaic in the Bardo Museum in Tunis (Fantar, 1994:122). On this mosaic the keel is also visible as in the Church of St. Stephen, shaped like a crescent. The boat is without details, emphasising only the fishing scene with two sparsely dressed fishermen.

Between the presbyterium and the nave is one step leading to a central, rectangular mosaic. The image is enclosed by a black border with a series of white medallions containing flowers, fruits, baskets and bowls with fruits and birds. Outside this border is a narrow frame of triangles and inside a frame of black tesserae in two rows, with a row of white tesserae between them. In the central area, close to the presbyterium, is an inscription reading “At the time of the most pious Bishop Sergius, this holy temple was built and completed by the care of the Priest Wa’il in the month Dius [481]. This is the priest and his servant.” The figures under the inscription represent the Priest Wa’il with his arms extended, accepting a branch from a person sitting to his right. Two people on his left could be his servants. The features of all faces, as in the case of the animals, have been erased. The next scene, beneath this group, shows a red carriage drawn by a horse among stylised flowers. In the third scene hounds pursue a beast; in the fourth, a horseman spears a wild beast, which is hunted by a dog and a second horseman follows behind.

The cradle formed hulls of the St. Stephen vessels may be compared to the Roman graffito (Fig. 78) and to a tombstone fragment (Fig. 79), both found in Germany, shown in Irene Pekáry’s work (1999: 15).

Fig. 78. An empty vessel, Roman graffito from Münsingen and Hölstein 2nd half of the 2nd century AD (Pekáry, 1999, 15, CH-9b)

The nave and the aisles were divided by two columns on each side. The four intercolumnar panels survived in fragmentary condition. A person in a red coat is depicted in one of the two southern panels, in the second four busts of half-nude women represent the Four Seasons. Each woman holds a cornucopia in her left hand, from which she pours water. In the background stand large houses, most probably churches with red roofs. In the northern intercolumnar spaces, close to the apse, appears a sea monster with a twisted body. In the next panel is a Nilotic scene with two boats sailing from both sides towards the centre of the picture (Figs. 81-83). The landscape between the boats is destroyed and in both cases only the area close to the frame remained preserved. The frame, as in all intercolumnar panels, is composed of polychrome rows of tesserae. This panel is surrounded by rows of red, black, white and grey tesserae.

Fig. 79. Tombstone relief fragment, Karlsruhe, Germany, Roman Period (I. Pekáry, 1999, 24, D-42) C. THE CHURCH OF THE PRIEST WA’IL, UMM AL-RASAS

The vessel at left (Fig. 82) is a rowing boat with a rounded keel and a rising inturned sternpost. The gunwale is emphasised by two rows of black tesserae; the hull close to the gunwale is composed of darker orange cubes. Next to the keel are two and three rows of stones in crenellations. On the hull are two squares of black cubes; presumably there was originally another square close to the stem, but this has been destroyed. The oar is fastened to the gunwale by a ring of white stones and a string of orange cubes. Only the starboard oar is preserved and has a long shaft with a rectangular blade. The upper part of

In the complex of Umm al-Rasas (Fig. 74), east of the Churches of St. Stephen and Bishop Sergius, is the Church of the Priest Wa’il (Fig. 80). This is a small building comprising a basilica with a nave and an apse flanked by narrow aisles (Piccirillo, 1993: 242ff). The church was built in AD 586, a year earlier than the Church of St. Sergius. The entire floor was paved with mosaics. The mosaic floor of the presbyterium has a geometric pattern of squares and hexagons, surrounded 47

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Fig. 80. The Church of the Priest Wa’il Jordan, Umm al-Rasas, Jordan, 5th century AD (Piccirillo, 1993, fig. 396)

Fig. 81. Western panel, Church of the Priest Wa’il, Umm al- Rasas, Jordan, 5th century AD (Piccirillo, 1993, fig. 396) 48

JORDAN: THE MADABA MOSAIC MAP, UMM AL-RASAS AND ZAY AL-GHARBY

Fig. 83. Second boat, Church of Priest Wa’il, Umm al- Rasas, Jordan, 5th century AD (Piccirillo, 1993, fig. 398)

Parallels Both boats with rounded hulls may be compared to the boat from the Church of St. Stephen (Fig. 76) and to the fishing scene (Fig. 77) on a Bardo Museum mosaic in Tunis (Fantar, 1994: 122).

D. THE CHURCH OF THE MARTYRS LOT AND PROCOPIUS The Church of the Holy Martyrs Lot and Procopius is located on the eastern slope of Mount Nebo in the village of Khirbet al-Mukhayyat, identified as the ancient town of Nebo. The town was mentioned often in ancient sources, including the Bible (Isaiah 15.2 and Jeremiah 48.22) and in the 9th century BC stela inscription, attributed to Mesha the king of Moab. This stela was discovered in 1868 by a Protestant missionary travelling in Jordan. Its text records how King Mesha, with the intervention of Moab’s chief deity, Chemosh, was able to deliver Moab from the rule of its neighbour, Israel (Docker Marcus, 2000: 151-52).

Fig. 82. Boat, Church of Priest Wa’il, Umm al- Rasas, Jordan, 5th century AD (Piccirillo, 1993, fig. 398)

The archaeological excavation of the church, commenced by the Franciscans in 1935, revealed that the site was occupied between the 17th century BC and the end of the Byzantine period (AD 650). Between the 5th and 6th century AD churches and a small monastery were built here: the Church of St. George, the Church of Amos and Casiseos, with a northern chapel dedicated to Priest John and the Church of the Holy Martyrs Lot and Procopius (Piccirillo, 1993: 164ff).

the blade is covered by the boat. It may be assumed that the same device would be also on the port side, which is not shown. A naked fisherman with a hat sits in the boat. Below the hat, on his forehead, seven black cubes depict his hair. He holds an oar in each hand and is the only person in this church mosaic not destroyed by iconoclasm. In the blue-grey water below the boat, swims a large grey fish. The waves are of black, blue, grey and white tesserae.

The church of the Holy Martyrs Lot and Procopius is a small building, 16.25 m long and 8.65 m wide, with a small apse, nave and two aisles (Fig. 84). The entire floors are paved with mosaics. In the elevated presbyterium stand two sheep on both sides of a tree. From there two steps lead down to the nave; there is a long inscription dedicating the church to the two martyrs. The nave is further decorated by a rectangular floor mosaic framed by a ribbon and is divided into two

The boat on the right side of the panel (Fig. 83) is similar to the first example, except for minor differences. Only the stern survived. The hull is outlined by one row of white tesserae and the strake emphasised with orange cubes. Similarly to the boat at left, this example has a rounded keel. The long oars on both vessels are not fastened in the same way.

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panels enclosed by a red frame with arrows, squares and diamonds. Both panels are encircled by two frames. The panel next to the dedication is framed by two narrow white lines of tesserae; on a black background and a red ribbon winding around a pattern of a small vines with two leaves. The outer frame is a line composed of red-stemmed flowers. This eastern panel, which is closer to the altar, is rectangular and is larger than the western panel. Out of each corner vine branches issue from a cluster of acanthus leaves, to form six rows of 20 medallions containing rural, hunting and pastoral scenes. The western panel at the entrance is square. In each of its four corners is a tree abounding with fruit, flanked by a pair of animals. On the northern side is a pair of grazing deer, on the southern side two hares and a mountain, and on the east side two bulls graze next to an altar. The nave was divided from both aisles by three columns. Only five of eight intercolumnar panels survive. All of them display a narrow frame of six rows of tesserae: two black, one red, one orange and two white. These contain Nilotic motifs which can be observed from the nave. From south-east to north-west are in the first panel flowers, fish, and water fowl (Fig. 85); a tree, plants, gazelles, geese and other animals. The last preserved intercolumnar panel, situated north of the inscription, is the panel of particular interest to the present topic (Figs. 86-88).

Fig. 84. Church of the Holy Martyrs Lot and Procopios, Mount Nebo, Jordan, 6th century AD (Piccirillo, 1993, fig. 202)

Fig. 85. Nilotic motif, The Church of the Holy Martyrs Lot and Procopios, Mount Nebo, Jordan, 6th century AD (Piccirillo, 1993, fig. 209)

Fig. 86. The Fishermen and the sailor. The Church of the Holy Martyrs Lot and Procopios, Mount Nebo, Jordan, 6th century AD (Piccirillo, 1993, fig. 211) 50

JORDAN: THE MADABA MOSAIC MAP, UMM AL-RASAS AND ZAY AL-GHARBY

Stephen, Umm al-Rasas (Fig. 76). However in the later instance, the boats are shown schematically without details, to complete the composition of the picture. The rowing boat from the church of the Holy Martyrs Lot and Procopius is depicted in every aspect. E. THE CHURCH OF ZAY AL-GHARBY The ancient village of Zia (modern Zay) is located some 20 km north-west of Amman and the same distance from Jericho. Eusebius cited the distance as being 15 miles from Philadelphia, modern Amman (Onomasticon 94.4). The excavation of the Byzantine church in the village was conducted by a team from the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in 1974 (Piccirillo, 1993: 324ff). The ecclesiastic complex (Fig. 89) consists of an oblong narthex with two entrances into the church: the first leads to a nave (27.40 x 9.70 m) and the second to a chapel (16.90 x 5.80 m) situated to the north. In the western part of the wall dividing the two rooms is a connecting door. The floors were paved with mosaics, but they have been largely destroyed. The mosaic floor in the northern chapel is in a better, but still poor state, even after an attempt of modern restoration.

Fig. 87. The Fishermen, The Church of the Holy Martyrs Lot and Procopius, Mount Nebo, Jordan, 6th century AD (Piccirillo, 1993, fig. 211)

The northern chapel is divided by a wall into two rooms: a square room on the eastern side and a rectangular nave to the west. The rooms are connected by a door in the centre of the wall. The square room mosaic is divided into five carpets, of which only three survive. It is surrounded by a frame of small squares with geometric patterns. Three images inside the square are preserved: one with interlaced rhomboids, the second with small flowers and the third with a tree and two people on each side. The nave is enclosed by an acanthus scroll, which also divides the panel into two pictorial areas. In the centre of the eastern panel is a rosette composed of small triangles surrounded by vine shoots descending from two amphorae in the western corners. The western panel is decorated with squares and diamonds depicting animals and hunting scenes.

Fig. 88. The boat. The Church of the Holy Martyrs Lot and Procopius, Mount Nebo, Jordan, 6th century AD (Piccirillo, 1993, fig. 211) To reiterate, the boat of which only the starboard is depicted is a small rowing vessel with a rounded keel partly covered by waves. The gunwale is slightly rounded, with a raised stern and sternpost turned inward. From the centre of the boat to the stem is a railing, attached to the gunwale by six small stakes. A sailor sits in the middle of the boat with his back to the church, his head turned in the direction of travel, rowing with both hands. The oars have a long shaft with a rounded blade. Only the starboard oar is visible, but it may be presumed that both oars are identical. The boat is loaded with two handled amphorae, sealed with conical lids, which resemble perhaps the basic anatomy of the local Palestinian LR5 bag-shaped storage jar, as in the case of the cargo in the ship depicted in the House of Kyrios Leontis at Beth Shean (Chapter 5C). The sailor, his upper body bare, seems to be a muscular man. The tesserae depicting him are of much smaller size, to highlight details of his body.

The main church consists of a nave and two aisles. Only in the north-western corner is the mosaic preserved. The mosaic in the aisle had geometric patterns of squares connected by lines emerging from the corners, so creating hexagons. The nave depicts a Nilotic motif surrounded by a wide border of acanthus leaves. In the corner of the border a face, like a flower bulb, peers out from the leaves. Next to it between the acanthus leaves two birds, with a ribbon around their neck, face each other. The surviving part of the middle floor depicts stormy water, a river, fishes, a crocodile, a lotus flower and two boats. One of the boats is a sailing vessel (Fig. 90) rendered from its starboard side. The keel is rounded, partly covered by waves, and the boat is encircled by a row of black tesserae. The planks of the hull from the middle of the boat to the stem are highlighted by two and three rows of white and black tesserae, respectively. The bow and stern are horizontal, but the sternpost is higher and

Parallels This rowing boat can be compared to some of the boats depicted on the Nilotic frame motif in the Church of St 51

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Fig. 90. Sailing vessel, Zay al-Gharby, Jordan, 5th-6th century AD (Piccirillo, 1993, fig. 660)

Fig. 89. The Church of Zay al-Gharby, Jordan, 5th-6th century AD (Piccirillo, 1993, fig. 670) rounded insides. In the middle of the boat is the mast, with the yard close to its top. From the top of the mast four ropes hang into the boat, two into the hands of the oarsman; the other two ropes are hidden behind the open sail, which reaches from stem to stern and is fastened to the yard at nine points. The brails are emphasised on the sail as vertical lines. Left of the mast, close to the stern, sits the oarsman holding the steering oars and facing a second man seated opposite on the other side of the mast, with his right hand outstretched, perhaps in dispute with his companion. Both steering oars discerned, the starboard oar is fastened to the gunwale and its blade is partly covered by water. The portside oar is partly hidden by the boat and the rectangular blade is above the water. The faces of both people have been destroyed. The open sail hangs like a curtain from the yard, to create a pictorial background. To the left of the boat are large lotus flowers and a fish.

Fig. 91. Second vessel, Zay al-Gharby, Jordan, 5th-6th century AD (M. Piccirillo, 1993, fig. 676) Near the border, another vessel approaches from outside the frame (Fig. 91). Both boats are sailing in the same direction. Also here the gunwale is depicted by a row of black tesserae and the planking of the hull at the bow is composed of white, grey, and black cubes. The stem is horizontal, rising slightly. On the stem stands a sailor turned towards the first boat, but his face has again been erased by iconoclasts. Also this set sail creates the background. In the river are fishes and a crocodile; on the

52

JORDAN: THE MADABA MOSAIC MAP, UMM AL-RASAS AND ZAY AL-GHARBY

parallels given in Chapter 5A, the keel is prolonged, but on the two ships of Zay al-Gharby the keel seems to be round. A better comparison would be the sailing vessel from Beth Shean (Chapter 5C, Fig. 56). The vessels from Zay al-Gharby are more detailed than the example from Beth Shean, which is stylised, but they have similarities in the horizontal stem, the rounded stern and the round keel.

riverbank trees. The water in the river is calm and the gentle waves are depicted by white, black, and grey lines of tesserae. Parallels Parallels exist with the Nunia ship (Fig. 37) and Ostia No. 32 (Fig. 39), except that on these both ships and on the

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7 EGYPT: MOSAICS OF BERENIKE, SOPHILOS AND THMUIS 2.61 m, framed on three sides (Fig. 92, 93). The inner picture depicting Berenike measures 85 x 86 cm. The mosaic is almost complete, except for small parts missing from the border and the portrait. The main picture was broken in several places when discovered, later reassembled, but leaving some sections incomplete. The inscription naming the artist’s name was also damaged, but has been read as ‘Sophilos’. After the panel was taken to the museum it was covered by a chemical preparation to strengthen it, but that unfortunately darkened in the course of time and reduced the brightness of the original colours (Daszewski, 1985: 142-58, no. 38, pl. 32). Professor M. Piccirillo from the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Jerusalem joined the restoration team in the years before its completion (pers. comm. March 2007). The mosaic floor has been dated to c. 200 BC and thus provides the earliest mosaic representation of any ship within the study region, and probably anywhere within the Mediterranean world (Koenen, 1993: 27).

Two mosaics depicting a bust of the same woman, presumably the head of Queen Berenike II, were found in Tell Timai, ancient Thmuis, in the Nile Delta, the site that was mentioned by Flavius Josephus in The Jewish War (4.11.5): “So Titus marched on foot as far as Nicopolis, which is distant twenty furlongs from Alexandria; there he put his army on board some long ships, and sailed upon the river along the Mendesian Nomus, as far as the city Thmuis; there he got out of the ships, and walked on foot, and lodged all night at a small city called Tanis”. Berenike II (267/266-221 BC), the daughter of Magas, Cyrene’s ruler (present day Libya), who married Ptolemy III, Euregetes, was famous. She was without doubt a major figure in Egyptian politics at that time. This fact is reflected by depictions of her in art, poems and mosaics. In her honour her image was stamped on silver and gold deca- and octadrachma, known in antiquity as “Berenikeia Nomismata” (Baldrige, 1995). It is believed that the images on the two mosaics, which will be discussed here, are Berenike’s II (Grimm, 1998: 79). Obviously her influence in politics and in maritime trade is an explanation for her hairstyle, depicted on the mosaics as a ship’s prow. The town named Berenike was situated in Egypt on the Red Sea coast. According to Pliny the Elder (NH 6.33.168) the town was founded in 257 BC by Ptolemy II Philadelphus (306-279 BC) and named after his mother Berenike I (r. c. 340-279 BC). Pliny the Elder (NH 6.26.168) describes the town Berenike as the main harbour for the Far East trade, Strabo (Geography, XVI.iv.4-17) on the contrary notes that it was Myos Hormos, today Quseir al Qadim, north of Berenike. The town of Berenike reached its peak during the time of Augustus (63BC- AD14) when trade between the Far East, African coast and the Mediterranean flourished. A. ‘BERENIKE A’ MOSAIC, SOPHILOS The mosaic discovered in 1918 in Thumis was subsequently removed and installed in the Alexandria Museum in 1924. It is almost a square carpet, measuring 3.77 x

Fig. 92. Mosaic depicting Berenike of Sophilos, Egypt, 3th century BC

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EGYPT: MOSAICS OF BERENIKE, SOPHILOS AND THMUIS

The headdress depicting a warship crowning her hair is combed to correspond to the effect of the waves covering the ship’s keel. The ship’s perspective is depicted similarly to her face, viewed three-quarters from its left, port side and a quarter from its right, starboard side, and from below. Its stem is made from dark brown tesserae and is positioned in the centre line of her face. The high, vertical stem is embellished with an inward curved endpost with a spiral tip. Where the lower bow touches her hair is a battering ram, which also resembles a uraeus, the cobra forehead decoration of the Pharaohs. The warship’s keel is submerged in her hair. The brown hull is decorated with two white strakes and between them are real and mythological sea creatures. On both sides of the hull dolphins are depicted, their round eyes suggestive of the mythological belief and long-held sailor superstition that dolphins bring luck to mariners and prevent danger. Near the stem the all-seeing eye, the ship’s apotropaic oculus, is clearly depicted with a black pupil and outer frame with white cornea. In front of the dolphin’s head are several vertical bands of geometric decorations of a wave-crest pattern. The upper part of the scene reveals the body of a monstrous sea snake with an open mouth and a fin tail resembling claws.

Fig. 93. Mosaic depicting Berenike’s headdress – the front part of a warship, Egypt, 3rd century BC (by courtesy of M. Artzi)

Parallels

The picture is framed by a 60 cm-wide border of three geometric patterns comprising: outer row – two facing rows of a design reminiscent of towers with three crenellations composed of black tesserae on a white background; the middle row 36 cm wide and embellished with polychrome double meanders; and the inner row comprising a double guilloche in yellow and cream colours. All three borders are divided by a band of three rows of white and four rows of black tesserae.

Warships equipped with bronze rams, as the 465 kilogram, 2.26 m-long form discovered at Atlit in Israel dating to the 2nd century BC (Linder, 1992; Fig. 94), are common in Hellenistic and Roman art of various media. The form is depicted as a prow from a Hellenistic galley on a coin of Demetrius Poliorcetes minted c. 300 BC and on a relief representing the stem of a Rhodian galley of c. 200 BC, carved into a cliff on the island of Lindos. The same kind of double ram – a main element at the waterline with a secondary appendage above, as on the Berenike mosaic, endured down the centuries and also features on a wall relief of a Roman trireme of the second half of the 1st century BC at Ostia and on Hadrianic coins of two-banked and single-banked galleys, to name but a

In the left upper corner of the central panel is a two line inscription, most probably rendering the artist’s name, ‘ȈȍĭǿȁȅȈ ǼȆȅǿǼǿ’. The portrait of Berenike is laid on a creamy-white background. Her round face is illuminated from the left side, leaving the right side of her face in a delicate penumbra. The colours of the flesh are pinkish-white and creamy-white and expand to greengrey, brown and orange. Her face is round, with prominent wide, open, glistening eyes staring into space, a mark of the queen’s superhuman nature. Her eyebrows differ in shape: the left is more horizontal, the right uplifted, circular and made from dark blue-grey and green-grey tesserae. The mouth is small, with parted lips exposing her teeth. The left ear is partly visible from under her dark brown hair. She wears golden earrings and a golden necklace. Berenike is dressed in rich military attire and embellished with maritime symbols. Over her red tunic she wears a silver cuirass inlaid with gold. Her left shoulder is covered with a white and purple chlamys pinned together on her right shoulder with a golden anchor-shaped fibula. Her headdress notably and quite unusually appears in the form of a warship’s prow. In her left hand, leaning on her left shoulder, she holds a ship’s mast with a horizontal yard to resemble a sceptre. A ribbon is attached to the top of the mast, its ends floating around her head.

Fig. 94. Bronze ram, discovered at Atlit, Israel, dating to the 2nd century BC, today in the Maritime Museum, Haifa (by courtesy of Israel Antiquities Authority)

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few examples (Casson, 1971: pl. 107-108). In this guise Berenike is portrayed as Tyche-Astarte, the ancient Canaanite fertility goddess, who was identified in later periods with the Graeco-Cypriote Aphrodite. She appears also on coins, prevalently in the Roman period, standing on a ships stem holding a rudder, a city’s tutelary deity especially in relation to the protection of coastal towns (Meshorer, 1985, 26, coin 41). Two physical examples of real ship’s opthalmoi have been discovered on the Tektas Burnu wreck off Turkey, dated to the third quarter of the 5th century BC. Both are composed of white marble and measure 138 and 135mm in diameter (Nowak, 2001).

B. ‘BERENIKE B’ MOSAIC, THUMIS A second mosaic (Fig. 95, 96) from Thumis depicts the same woman as the previous mosaic, presumably once again Queen Berenike II of Egypt Berenike (r. c. 267, 266-221 BC), who is again dressed in Hellenistic military attire and crowned with a prow of a ship (Daszewski, 1985: 146-158, cat. no. 39, pl. 33). The panel is circular, measuring 1.44 m in diameter, with a round emblema of 79 cm. The border comprises a geometric design reminiscent of leaves composed of white, black, blue and yellow-brown tesserae. Fragments are missing from the creamy white background of the figurative panel and the mosaic has been partly restored with larger cubes of slightly different colours.

Fig. 96. Mosaic depicting Berenike’s headdress – the front part of a warship, Egypt, 3th century BC (by courtesy of M. Artzi)

plump than in the previous mosaic. She wears long gold earrings and a gold necklace. She is dressed in a red tunic and over it a silver cuirass inlaid with gold. A chlamys covers her left shoulder, its edges pinned together on her right shoulder with an anchor-shaped golden fibula, similar to the one worn in the former composition. In her hands she holds a long mast leaning against her right shoulder. Only the left yardarm is visible; the right yardarm is obscured by the border. The subject of our interest is again the figure’s headdress. Her brown hair is combed back and parted in the middle, upon the forehead hang four hook-like curls. Hair and head are crowned with a warship. The curved upraised stem is topped with a small ball, which protrudes into the upper border. The central line of the stem is outlined by a brown row of tesserae, the illuminated area with brown, ochre and white, the shadowed areas with dark brown cubes. The hull is decorated by two bands divided by strakes. The upper band depicts a schematic representation of a green sea snake bearing an orange diadem. The lower band is decorated by dolphins, viewed frontally, as on the previous mosaic. Overall, the warship is suggestive of great power and movement, by representing the vessel as under sail and heading directly towards the viewer.

Fig. 95. Berenike from Thumis, second Example, 3th century BC (Daszewski, 1985, pl. 33)

Both ships have similarities, but they differ in the treatment of the stem, which is spiral-like and inturned on the first mosaic, but on the second is surmounted with a small circular terminal. The first has a battering ram in the shape of a uraeus, which is absent on the second mosaic.

The figure’s face is turned as on the previous mosaic, to the right side and illuminated from the left side. Her wide open eyes stare at the viewer. Her slightly curved nose is large; the illuminated side is pink, the shaded side orange to brown. The mouth is small, with full lips. The upper lip has a heart shaped outline. The queen appears more 56

8 UNPROVENANCED MOSAICS Many artefacts, including floor mosaics, have been discovered across the Eastern Mediterranean by unauthorised individuals, or prior to the emergence of scientific archaeology, and have appeared on antiquity markets without data relating to provenance and dating, because they have been removed unprofessionally from their original context. Parts of frescoes and wall reliefs have been chiselled away from walls of tombs and palaces, as in Egypt and Mesopotamia, simply destroying creations of art and leaving behind the mutilated remains. Such items are bought by collectors and are dispersed all over the world, occasionally with major pieces ending up exhibited in important museums, where at last the wider world can appreciate them.

Fig. 97. Mosaic depicting a coracle (Halloun, 1988, pl. 12)

A. MOSAIC WITH A SYRIAC INSCRIPTION AND A BOAT One such piece is a black-and-white mosaic containing a Syriac inscription and an image of a boat. Professor M. Halloun from the Bethlehem University (1988: 271-275; pls. 11-12) obtained two photographs of this mosaic from Dr. Horowitz in Florida, who had no explanation about how this mosaic arrived in America (Fig. 97, 98). Professor M. Halloun suggests that according to the inscription the mosaic originates in Syria. The depicted boat is a coracle, a small round kind of craft usually used for river crossings, which can be made of various materials (Fig. 99). Animal hide coracles were used in ancient Babylon for crossing the Euphrates and Tigris; this material was also used by the Vikings, and reed was used in countries where it was amply available along rivers and marshlands (see Chapter 8B). Hide-made coracles had an internal frame made of wickerwork coated with pitch and then covered with the animal skins.

Fig. 98. Drawing of a coracle (Halloun, 1988, pl. 12)

The vessel on this particular mosaic is seen partly from above and the mosaicist depicted the framework supporting the vessel from inside the hull. This craft seems to be made of wood with wickerwork framing. Across the centre of the boat lies a wooden board, a bench. The paddle lying on the bench is spiked on both

Fig. 99. Ancient British coracle (Ellacott, 1958, 4) 57

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ends, on one side with one spike reminiscent of a leaf, on the other with two spikes. This device could have been used for harpooning fish, but also to propell the boat.

The fragment measures 45 x 35.5 cm, missing are the frame and a large part of the field (Fig. 100, 101). The mosaic has been broken at the centre and the edges. The fragments were re-joined and framed in wood by a restorer. The fragment discussed here certainly belonged to the artefacts cut out by antiquities collectors from its original place and without doubt changed hands several times before returning to Egypt.

The depiction of a coracle on any artistic media in an Eastern Mediterranean context is extremely rare. Indeed, this may be the only example recorded to date. Whilst examples are known from art and literature in the West (McGrail, 2001: 182) the coracle is not renowned as a water vehicle in the East, although the inland waterways of Mesopotamia, Syria, Jordan, Israel and Egypt were eminently suited to this cheap form of local transport. B. A NILOTIC SCENE A second scientifically unattributed mosaic fragment is believed to have originated in Tell El-Amarna, Egypt, which, after changing hands, found its way ‘home’ back to Egypt (Daszewiski, 1985: 167-168; pl. 37a, no. 44). The fragment, which has a Nilotic scene, was originally sold to the Museum of Agriculture in Cairo by M. Nahman, an antiques dealer (Daszewski: 1985: 167, cat. no. 44, pl. 37). Rather than deriving from Tell ElAmarna, Daszewiski has proposed that it originated in the northern region of Egypt, the Delta, Alexandria, or Canopus. He dates the fragment to the Late Hellenistic period, probably to the beginning of the 1st century BC, based on the realistic and unconventional interpretation of the scenery and the character of the pygmy alluding to Hellenistic art.

Fig. 101. Drawing of the Nilotic scene on mosaic, El Amarna, Egypt, 1st century BC The panel is vibrantly polychrome, made of extremely small stone and glass tesserae (some just 1 – 2 mm wide). The grey-brown stones of the background are slightly larger. Coloured mortar was used to enhance pictorial motifs. The scene depicts a reed boat sailing through a Nilotic landscape. The brown and orange boat is made from reed and has a rising stempost. In the boat stands a large headed pygmy with a fat belly and short legs. He turns to the left in the direction of sailing and pushes the boat through the marshes with a long stick, leaning slightly forward. The vegetation surrounding the boat is high and fertile, giving a realistic picture to what prevails today along the Nile. In the left corner of the fragment a bird sits on a reef. Daszewski suggests that it may be a hoopoe. Parallels Reed boats were used – and continue to be used today – on subtropical and tropical rivers, due to the abundance of readily available raw material. Fine examples survive on Lake Titicaca between Bolivia and Peru (Fig. 102), where not only boats, but whole islands with houses and churches, are built of reed.

Fig. 100. Nilotic scene on mosaic, El Amarna, Egypt, 1st century BC

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Fig. 102. Modern reed boats on Lake Titicaca

Another example, this time dating from antiquity, is a 23rd century AD example (Fig. 103) found in a Roman villa at Leptis Magna in Libya (Foucher: 1963: 140, fig. 17). The mosaic’s theme is also a Nilotic scene with a marsh, flora and fauna. The boat has a rising stem and stern, but not as high as on the El-Amarna boat. The oarsman is seated, bent backwards, rowing and not pushing the boat with a stick. A fisherman stands in the boat bent forward and fishing. Also on the Nile mosaic from Palestrina (Fig. 5) in the right bottom corner, in section 17, is depicted a reef boat (Meyboom, 1999, fig. 27).

Fig. 103. A reed boat from Lepcis Magna, Libya, Roman period (Foucher, 1963, fig. 17)

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9 CLASSICAL LEGACY IN THE 20TH CENTURY: NOAH’S ARK IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE, JERUSALEM AND THE CHURCH OF ST. STEPHEN, BETH GEMAL On the northern wall three pictures depict the conversion of Armenians to Christianity in the year AD 301, by St. Gregory the Illuminator. The first picture shows king Tertates III (Tiridates III) persecuting Christians. According to Armenian tradition the king threw St. Gregory into a deep pit, where he was imprisoned for five years (some traditions state 13 years). During this time pious women looked after him. The king was taken ill and nobody could heal him. When the king’s sister dreamed that only the man imprisoned in the pit could cure him, St. Gregory was released, prayed to God, and Tertates III was cured. In appreciation, the king and all his subjects were converted by St. Gregory to Christianity (a scene shown in the second picture). The third picture portrays Tertates carrying a heavy stone on his shoulders to build a church.

A. THE CHAPEL OF ST. GREGORY, THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE, JERUSALEM The Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Fig. 104) is located in the Christian quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. Its location was chosen due to the former presence of a Temple of Aphrodite there (Eusebius, Via Constant 3.2526); it was the custom of the newer faiths to obliterate the place of worship of the previous. Some decorated stones from the earlier edifice, as friezes, were incorporated into the façade of the church, which has been extensively and continuously embellished between the era of Constantine the Great in the 4th century AD and the present day. The most extensive construction and changes too, were implemented by the Crusaders. During various excavations in the second half of the 20th century ashlar masonry, which may be remnants from the destroyed Second Temple (AD 70), was found in secondary use. Also parts of walls ascribed to Hadrian’s 2nd century temple structure (Broshi, 1993: 120), were uncovered.

On the southern wall are two compositions. On the first is depicted a narrative from the legend of St. Hripsime, who in the 3rd century brought a piece of the Cross to Armenia. On the way she had to hide the relic on Mount Varak from the pursuing soldiers of Constantine. Around the year AD 600 two monks, St. Todik and St. Hovel, saw in their dream a star illuminating a place on Mount Varak, with a church supported by 12 pillars and a cross. When they reached the spot, they discovered the Cross’ remains and went on to build here the monastery of Varak. The second composition depicts the return of the remains of the True Cross from Persia to Jerusalem in AD 629.

Various mosaics are in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, laid during the 20th century according to ancient designs, mainly in the Armenian section. Only one mosaic, in the Chapel of St. Gregory, incorporates an image of a boat. The Chapel of St Gregory (Figs. 104, 105) lies on the eastern side of the Church, and is accessible by steps leading from a corridor surrounding the central church. It is a rectangular room with an altar, as usual facing eastwards. In its south-eastern corner are steps descending to a lower level and the Chapel of St. Helena, where this saint claimed to have found the remains of the True Cross of Christ. Other steps, from the north-eastern corner, descend to the chapel of St. Vartan (Fig. 49), which is a relatively recent discovery (Broshi, 1993). In the centre of the Chapel of St. Gregory four massive columns with complex capitals support the ceiling; the upper part are Corinthian capitals embellished with acanthus leaves, below them ‘knitted’ basket capitals; their lower part was covered with golden shields, which no longer exist.

In the Chapel of St. Gregory are two rectangular mosaics. The images are oriented towards the entrance, so that the viewer can enjoy them when entering the chapel. The smaller floor adjoins the altar at the chancel (Fig. 106) and the larger is situated one step lower, between the chancel and the four columns (Figs. 105, 107). The first mosaic measures 1.71 x 2.54 m and a ribbon frame divides it into three parts. In the upper part is a depiction of Mount Ararat and the Deep Pit – Khor Virab, where St. Gregory was imprisoned. In the middle part of the mosaic is a five-line inscription, a prayer to St. Gregory. 60

CLASSICAL LEGACY IN THE 20TH CENTURY: NOAH’S ARK IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE…

Fig. 104. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, The Chapels of St. Gregory, St. Helen and St. Vartan, Jerusalem, Israel

Fig. 105. The Chapel of St. Gregory, Jerusalem, Israel, 20th century (photo. R. Kotzer) 61

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

In the centre of the third scene is an amphora with vine branches and grapes. On each side of the amphora a quail eats grapes. The most important holy places in Armenia are represented in the central mosaic (Figs. 105, 107, 108), which measures 5.32 x 5.65 m with a 91 cm-wide border. The border consists of two parts, a 25 cm wide strip made of the same tesserae as the background of the two mosaic carpets, and the main border, 56 cm wide, encircled on both sides by two black lines. It is decorated with medallions formed by vines, and in them pairs of birds and animals, which Noah took onto the Ark. The artist used as a model various kinds of birds depicted in the 4thcentury Armenian Church in Jerusalem, where the floor is covered with birds in medallions. In the Chapel of St. Gregory the medallions are filled with goats, sheep, peacocks (Fig. 109), pigeons, guinea fowls, partridges, flamingos, deer and a pair of whales. On the entrance side, in the middle of the border is an image of Noah’s Ark (Fig. 110) and closer to the entrance, added to the border and between the two western columns, a large inscription relating to the laying of this mosaic during the reign of Catholicos Vasken of All Armenians (1956-1994) and in memory of the

Fig. 106. The mosaic carpet in the Chancel, Chapel of St. Gregory, Jerusalem 20th century (photo. R. Kotzer)

Fig. 107. The monasteries depicted on the large carpet in the Chapel of St. Gregory, Jerusalem 20th century (photo. R. Kotzer) 62

CLASSICAL LEGACY IN THE 20TH CENTURY: NOAH’S ARK IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE…

victims who died during the beginning of the 20th century. The central part of the carpet is composed of four-leafed flowers, which form crosses. Within are the representations of Mount Ararat and eight monasteries, all of the built in Armenia during the 3rd-6th century. The tesserae are not so accurately cut as those used during the Roman and Byzantine periods, but are still square, varying between 0.8-1 cm, which gives the whole carpet a background impression. Noah’s Ark is shown under a rainbow forming an arch, 136 cm long and 87 cm high, below the square depicting Mount Ararat (Fig. 110). The shape of the ark is composed by seven rows of cubes. The Ark is stylised and symbolic. The rainbow ascends on the left side from the sea and is on its right intersected by vines. The Ark on the left side is afloat, with a pair of whales, and at the right ashore, with a pair of hares, jumping between the vines.

Fig. 108. The Church of Etchmiadzin, Yerevan, Armenia, 4th century AD. Compare the photograph of the monastery with the monastery in the center of the carpet, Fig. 106. (Internet: “Armenian Churches”)

The Ark has symmetrical bow and stern, rising high and turned inwards. The keel is emphasised by two rows of black tesserae. The planking of the hull is shown by four strakes, which merge into one at the timber heads. Each plank is delineated by three rows of light brown stones and its lower part by two rows of dark brown stones. In the Ark is the monastery of St. Zvartnotz, the same as in the central picture. In front of the monastery in the boat are a giraffe and a cow. Parallels The form of the ship is stylised to such an extent, that it is hard to compare it to any illustration of boats, depicted in mosaics or other media. Even the boats in the church of St Stephen (Fig. 76), although stylised, have more details and are more realistically presented.

Fig. 109. A pair of peacocks depicted in the frame of the large carpet in the Chapel of St. Gregory, Jerusalem (photo. R. Kotzer)

B. THE CHURCH OF ST. STEPHEN, BET GEMAL On the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, between the coastal plain and the hill country south-east of the town Beit Shemesh are the two monasteries of Bet Gemal. In a separated monastery compound are living more than 30 nuns from 15 different countries belonging to the Carthusian Order, the ‘Bethlehem, Assumption of the Virgin Mary and St. Bruno’. St. Bruno (1030-1101), born in Cologne and educated at Reims in human and divine science, was an ecclesiastical writer and the founder of the Carthusian Order. The second compound is inhabited by monks belonging to the Salesian Order, founded by an Italian priest, St. John Bosco (Don Bosco, 1815-1888) and consecrated by Pope Pius IX in 1874. Don Bosco’s educational philosophy emphasized reason, religion and kindness. Today the Salesian Family numbers more than 35,000 members in over 100 countries.

Fig. 110. Noah’s Ark, Church of St. Gregory, Jerusalem (photo. R. Kotzer)

In 1916 a fragment of a mosaic floor was discovered in the courtyard of the Salesian Order’s agricultural school

Patriarch Archbishop Yeghishe of Jerusalem. The inscription also commemorates the millions of Armenian 63

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

at the Monastery of Bet Gemal, by the Benedictine Fr. Maurizio Gisler, based in the Church of Dormitio, Jerusalem. In the process of six short excavation seasons, Gisler and A. Bormida, a Salesian brother, discovered the foundations of a 5-6th century Byzantine church, probably destroyed in the middle of the 7th century with fragments of a mosaic floor. New excavations conducted in 1989-1998 under the Direction of Professor A. Strus (2003: 547), based at the Salesian Theological School at Cremisan near Bethlehem, exposed a small semi-circular grotto (1.60 x 1.20 m) under the southern aisle, which is believed to be the tomb where the remains of St. Stephen were buried. Strus suggested that the grotto could previously have functioned as a miqveh, a Jewish ritual bath, or that later it was used for baptism. The excavations also uncovered a lavish Jewish villa with a private miqveh, believed to have belonged to Rabbi Gamaliel.

Fig. 111. Plan of the miqveh and the nearby Byzantine church, Bet Gemal, Israel, 20th century (Mazzilli, Strus, 2003)

In light of the church’s name, Bet Gemal (Arabic ‘Beit Jimal’), this location is associated with certain ancient religious legends. St. Stephen is thought to have been a pupil of Rabbi Gamaliel, which is inferred from his able defence before the Sanhedrin (the ancient Jewish court system from the 1st century BC until the abolishment of the rabbinic patriarchate c. AD 425). In a letter Lukianos reported the discovery of the bones of St. Stephen at ‘Kaphargamala’, a name that derived from the rabbi’s name ‘Gamaliel’, and indicated the place where the tomb of this saint was hidden (Strus, 2003: 547). In 1932 a new church, dedicated to St. Stephen, was built on the ruins of the Byzantine edifice. Fr. M. Gisler, an archaeologist and architect, wanted the new church to be a reconstruction of the 15 x 9 m ancient edifice (Fig. 111). The new church has a nave flanked by two narrow aisles. The outer walls are decorated by four frescoes depicting the life of St. Stephen, the first known Christian martyr. From right to left, the paintings represent St. Stephen’s election as Deacon, his attempt to persuade his Jewish brothers to accept Jesus of Nazareth as the true Messiah, his condemnation to death as a blasphemer and finally his death by stoning and his burial by the devout.

Fig. 112. Mosaic over the apse in the Church of St. Stephen, Bet Gemal, Israel

The back of the altar is decorated by symbols derived from Old and New Testament themes (Fig. 112). Christ stands on a boat sailing over the sea, depicted as waves. The nimbus above Christ reflects Biblical narratives. Of special interest is the unrealistic 20th century depiction of the boat, which is more symbolic than ancient representations of ships and was inspired by religious themes, rather than authentic images of boat construction. Nevertheless, the artist most probably derived his model from a cog, a watercraft used between the 13th and 17th century.

used a steering oar (side rudder, quarter rudder). There is no evidence of a stern rudder in northern Europe until about 1240. The cogs had open hulls and could be rowed over short distances. Their invariant attribute was as double-ended vessels, generally with straight raked posts, with a flat bottom longitudinally and a sharp transition between bottom and posts. During the 13th century they became larger and received a deck, as well as a raised platform in the bow and stern. Exactly what cogs looked like is hard to reconstruct. The best-preserved example is the Bremen cog, whose hull is preserved, but not the rig. Common features for cogs include one square yard sail, outer clinker-built hull planking, a straight stem and stempost and strong crossbeams usually protruding through the ship’s sides and securing the sides together.

The cog was a wide spacious type of ship that gradually replaced Viking type ships in northern Europe. The first mention of a cog appeared in 9th century documents referring to Frisian shipping and trade, possible related to King Alfred (McGrail, 2001: 232). Early cogs probably

The ship depicted in the apse of the Church of St. Stephen has a rounded keel, which is partly covered by a wave crest. The stern and stem rise to the same height. In the stern is a castle. Covering the mast, Christ stands in front of a white sail, which propels the ship to the right.

64

CLASSICAL LEGACY IN THE 20TH CENTURY: NOAH’S ARK IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE…

The starboard steering oar descends from a round hole. It has a short shaft and a rounded blade, partly covered by waves. Instead of indicating construction details, the ship is decorated with inscriptions, titles of books of the Bible, a bust of a woman, a lion, a bull and an eagle, all four of them winged. On both sides of the ship are signs of the Zodiac. Christ and the ship stand beneath a wide semicircular border, creating a nimbus illustrated with biblical stories. Above Christ, in the middle of this border, is a tree with a snake and Adam and Eve. At right are Noah’s Ark, the Binding of Isaac, the fall of the walls of Jericho, Solomon’s Temple, Samson, Jonah and a lamb (below Christ in a circle). At left are Elias, Moses, and Josiah. Encircling the figurative decoration is a narrow border with a Latin inscription from the Lord’s Prayer, reading ‘DIMITTE NOBIS DEBITA NOSTRA SICUT ET NOS DIMITTIMUS DEBITORIBUS NOSTRIS’ (‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive our sinners’) based on the book of Matthew 6.12.

Fig. 113. Hansa Cog as used by the Crusaders in the Medieval period

Parallels Although 20th-century in date, the cog depicted in the 1932 Church of St. Stephen has undoubtedly been inspired by the western art of medieval Europe. Its iconography, characterized by a high castle in the stern with a parallel galley structure in the bows, looks back in time towards ships depicted, for instance, on town seals used in 13th-century Winchelsea, New Shoreham in 1295 and Straslund in 1329 (McGrail, 2001: 230, 233, 240). References to cogs in historical documents increased in the 13th and 14th centuries, when this type of cargo vessel served as the ‘workhorse’ of the Hanseatic League in coastal voyages from the Rhine to Scandinavia. Notably, Crusaders and pilgrims from northern Europe made their way to the Holy Land in cogs (McGrail, 2001: 232; Figs. 113, 114, 115)). The most famous archaeological remains of such a vessel is the late 14th-century Bremen Cog discovered in 1962 along a former stretch of the River Weser (Crumlin-Pederson, 2000). The excavation of the Kuggmaren 1 wreck in the Stockholm archipelago has pushed the emergence of the cog form of shipbuilding back to the late 12th or early 13th century (Adams and Rönnby, 2002). Early 13th century cog-like ship’s planking has been excavated in London (Goodburn and Thomas, 1997).

Fig. 114. Replica of a cog in the harbour of Malmö/Sweden

Although a modern depiction of a ship in Israel, the Church of St. Stephen vessel is nevertheless relevant as a comparative source that reminds us that correlations between a maritime object seen in art are not always, or perhaps even often, directly linear to contemporary currents in shipping or aesthetics. In the same way that modernity envisages Christ as a blue-eyed, long-haired man with European facial features, so in this case the Church has chosen to depict a ship associated with Jesus as medieval, probably inspired by Crusader-era art.

Fig. 115. Hansa Cog (13th to 17th century AD) used also by the Crusaders (Ellacott, 1958, 17)

65

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

10 CONCLUSION extent of travel in the ancient world by elites inspired commissions from personal observations in private and public buildings, nature, and pattern books. An important conclusion of the current work is that the use of stock templates and motifs may best explain why there are similarities between the subject matter in mosaics of different periods within maritime compositions.

The writer has first and foremost sought to present an outline history of ancient sites associated with floor mosaics depicting marine vessels in the widely defined Eastern Mediterranean stretching from southern Turkey to Egypt. This geographical approach is justified in order to examine and expose regional rather than localized trends. Mosaics did not exist or function in isolation of their historical contexts, but were created by specialists who had inherited a deep-rooted tradition from the Greek world and were commissioned by a range of officials with a long tradition of civic governance spanning the pagan and Christian spheres. Marine scenes per se were interwoven – quite literally, like carpets of stone – with a manifold range of non-representative decoration and this necessitated its description.

A total of 38 individual examples of marine and riverine craft have been presented from the study region: three from Turkey, seven from Syria, two from Lebanon, twelve from Israel (10 ancient, 2 modern), ten from Jordan, two from Egypt, and two unprovenanced (Tables 1-4). The quality of vessel depictions varies widely from what can be termed Low Realism (Rayân, Syria) to works of impressively detailed High Realism (Lod, Israel and Thmuis, Egypt). A total of four of the vessels are schematically rendered, seven display Low Realism, 21 Medium Realism (in which individual construction features can be observed), and seven High Realism of outstanding detail and artistic flair.

Essentially this book is the study of what data may be derived from the techniques of boat construction in mosaic pavements and other artistic media, such as wall paintings and reliefs, and how these techniques were disseminated and understood through the medieval period and into the modern era by a combination of artistic depictions and oral traditions. By carefully scrutinising details on ancient mosaics, such as the 3rd-4th century AD Lod floor in Israel in relation to the 18th-century Amsterdam ship (Chapter 5), it is clear that many of the same components – for instance, shrouds and pulleys – remained largely unchanged over time. This could also hold true for hull construction: ancient techniques of reed construction discernible in ancient floor mosaics may be observed in the modern era on Lake Titicaca in Bolivia and Peru.

Most notable of all within the data set is the similarity of boat and ship forms of what may be classified following this study as regional ‘Near Eastern Mediterranean vessels’. Merchant vessels powered by sail especially depicted at Rayân (Syria), the smaller ship from KhaldéChoueifat (Lebanon), and Lod, Beth Shean, Beth Guvrin and Beth Loya (Israel) feature comparable broad hulls crafted in tesserae with a false perspective displaying rounded, sometimes heavily semi-circular hull shapes with out-turned, beak-like stemposts. Clearly the artist wished to convey a sense of a merchant vessel weighed down with a heavy burden: keels are of course in reality not rounded along their lengths. Interestingly, this ship form is not replicated in Jordan as imported contemporary iconography, which again supports the idea that the anatomy was originally based on a real rather than imagined regional Near Eastern maritime tradition, which subsequently made its way into the local pattern books, which no longer survive.

Comparing depictions on ancient mosaics throughout the Mediterranean region – whether mythological, marine life, or Nilotic – reveals clearly perceivable comparable types of scenes and details from sea and river vessels (Tables 1-4). Naturally, this raises questions of how these designs were transmitted across time and space. It is reasonable to assume that mosaicists not only worked in static workshops in urban centres, but also travelled widely and copied their designs from the floors they observed. It is certainly the case that pattern books were in wide circulation in much the same way that modern designs circulate in wallpaper and textile books. The

Several mosaics show a curious, second ship construction style emphasizing the presence of a hydronamic cutwater, which remained popular between the Roman period (1st66

CONCLUSION

Table 1. Summary of maritime motifs on mosaics from southern Turkey, Syria and Lebanon. Legend code: S: Schematized; LR: Low Realism; MR: Medium Realism; HR: High Realism. Site

Site Type

Date (AD) rd

Composition

Vessel Form

Symbolism

House of Menander, Antioch, Turkey

Private dwelling

2-3 century

Boat & erotes (LR)

Small regional rowing boat

Aesthetic: water & luxury

House of Okeanos & Thetis, Antioch, Turkey

Private dwelling

2-3rd century

Boat & putti fishing, oars (LR)

Small regional rowing boat

Aesthetic: water & luxury

----

5th century

Boat & fishing, oars (MR)

Small regional paddled canoe

Aesthetic: water & luxury

Rayân, Syria

Christian basilica

5th century

Two sailing vessels (S)

Inter-regional broadhulled sailing ship

Allegorical

Apamea, Syria

Triclinium

4th century

Rowing/sailing? boat (MR)

Small regional Rowing/sailing? boat

Aesthetic: water & luxury?

Sorân, Syria

Christian basilica

5th century (post-432)

Two sailing vessels with amphorae (MR)

Regional merchant sailing boats

Allegorical & symbolic: economic wealth

Shahba-Philippopolis, Syria

Church

4th century

Two rowing/ fishing boats with putti (HR)

Small regional rowing boats

Allegorical

Khaldé-Choueifat, Lebanon

Church

5th century

Two sailing vessels (MR)

Inter-regional broadhulled merchant vessels

Allegorical & symbolic: economic wealth

Yakto Complex, Daphne, Turkey

Table 2. Summary of maritime motifs on ancient mosaics from Israel. Legend code: S: Schematized; LR: Low Realism; MR: Medium Realism; HR: High Realism. Site

Site Type

Date (AD)

Composition

Vessel Form

Symbolism

Migdal Nunia, Israel

Villa

1st century AD

Fishing boat, oars & sail (MR)

Regional fishing boat

Symbolic: economic wealth

Lod, Israel

Villa

Late 3rd/early 4th century AD

Two sailing ships (HR)

Inter-regional broadhulled merchant vessels

Aesthetic & symbolic: economic wealth

House of Kyrios Leontis, Israel

Private dwelling

5th century AD

Odysseus tied to ship (MR)

Inter-regional broadhulled sailing ship

Mythological/ Allegorical

House of Kyrios Leontis, Israel

Private dwelling

5th century AD

Sailing ship with amphorae (MR)

Inter-regional broadhulled merchant vessels

Allegorical/Symbolic: economic wealth/ Aesthetic: Nilotic

House of Kyrios Leontis, Israel

Private dwelling

5th century AD

Sailing ship with amphorae (MR)

Inter-regional broadhulled merchant vessels

Allegorical/Symbolic: economic wealth/ Aesthetic: Nilotic

Church of Mahat-el-Aradi

6th century AD

Two boats, oars and sails (MR)

Regional fishing boats

Allegorical

Beth Loya, Israel

Church

AD 500

Sailing ship (MR)

Regional merchant vessel

Allegorical

Haditha, Israel

Church

6th century

Sailing ship (MR)

Inter-regional broadhulled merchant vessel

Allegorical/Symbolic: economic wealth

Beth Guvrin, Israel

amphorae typified by the vessel on the 5th-century Khirbet Cheikh Messaoud, mosaic from Sorân in Syria. This boat is identical to that depicted on another 4-5th century floor from the Apamea region in Syria, down to the typology of identical storage jars. Since these are of Western form, this scene may have been transmitted East in patterns books.

century AD Migdal Nunia, Israel) and the Byzantine era (6th-century AD Haditha, Israel). While the former inland vessel, which presumably sailed on the Sea of Galilee, displays shallow lines, the latter ship has a strongly rounded beam suited to ocean-going travel. A final category, which seems to have made its way into the pattern books, are the regional sailing cargo boats with

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MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Table 3. Summary of maritime motifs on ancient mosaics from Jordan. Legend code: S: Schematized; LR: Low Realism; MR: Medium Realism; HR: High Realism. Site

Site Type

Date (AD)

Composition

Vessel Form

Symbolism

Madaba, Jordan

Church

6th century

One ferry (S); Two sailing ships (MR)

Regional ferry; Interregional broad-hulled sailing ship

Aesethetic/ Topographical

Church of St. Stephen Umm al-Rasas, Jordan

Church

6th century

Two sailing boats (MR)

Nilotic sailing boats?

Aesthetic: Nilotic

Church of the Priest Wa’il, Umm al-Rasas, Jordan

Church

AD 586

Two fishing boats, oars (MR)

Nilotic fishing boats?

Aesthetic: Nilotic

Church of the Martyrs Lot & Procopius, Jordan

Church

6th century

Cargo boat, oars (MR)

Regional transport boat

Aesthetic: Nilotic/ Symbolic: economic wealth/

Church of Zay al-Gharby, Jordan

Church

5th-6th century AD

Two sailing boats (LR)

Regional transport boat

Aesthetic: Nilotic/Allegorical

Table 4. Summary of maritime motifs on ancient mosaics from Egypt, unprovenaced floors, and modern mosaics from Israel. Legend code: S: Schematized; LR: Low Realism; MR: Medium Realism; HR: High Realism. Site

Site Type

Date

Composition

Vessel Form

Symbolism

Thmuis, Egypt

----

c. 200 BC

Two view of Queen Berenike surmounted by warship (HR)

Oared warship

Aesthetic/Political

Syriac/Unprovenanced

----

----

Coracle, oars (LR)

Regional river craft

Aesthetic

Tell El-Amarna, Egypt?

----

----

Reed boat (LR)

Regional river craft

Aesthetic: Nilotic

Chapel of St. Gregory, Israel

Church

20th century

Noah’s Ark (HR)

Ark

Aesthetic: biblical

Church of St. Stephen, Israel

Church

1932

Cog with Jesus at mast (LR)

Cog, European

Aesthetic/Allegorical

The presence of so many inland watercraft associated with Nilotic scenes on floors from Syria and Israel is not unexpected. Rome was enthralled by all subjects Egyptian – from obelisks to the mystery religions – which prevailed in the Eastern Mediterranean into Late Antiquity, where a love of the exotic seemingly combined to convey a sense of local abundance in water sources and of the wealth derived from it. The current data set also includes unexpected one-off craft, such as the canoe represented in the 5th-century Yakto Complex at Daphne, Turkey, and most excitingly of all the large ship seen at 5th century Khaldé-Choueifat, Lebanon, with a quadrilateral settee sail and which now serves as an important counterpart to the late 5th to early 6th century AD ship depiction from the port of Kelenderis in southern Turkey.

place to another was by sea. The ubiquity of boats and ships made them popular artistic subjects. For marine archaeologists these depictions are of natural historical interest because they provide a detailed glimpse of ancient construction techniques not known from excavated wrecks on the seabed where mostly only the keel is preserved. Mosaic art is in one way the ‘archaeology of the upper decks’. Surprisingly few hulls overlapping in date with the classical mosaic under discussion have been recorded in the East Mediterranean. None can be drawn on for Syria or Lebanon and only from two Roman sites has been examined in Israel: the 1st-century AD merchant vessel from north Caesarea (Fitzgerald, 1994) and the Sea of Galilee fishing boat of comparable chronology, which serves as an important point of comparison for the Migdal Nunia mosaic (Wachsmann, 1990). An extensive graveyard of Byzantine sea-going ships has been discovered and well recorded off Dor, Israel, and remains of cargoes include the same type of bag-shaped and Gaza-Ashkelon Palestinian amphorae depicted on the floors from Beth Shean and Haditha in Israel (Kingsley, 2002; 2004b).

The art of mosaic was diffused mostly through trade, pilgrimage, and also military activity. Most people did not enjoy and could not afford the time or expense of the luxury of travelling in the manner of Herodotus through the eastern Mediterranean in the 5th century BC and later to experience foreign cultures. The fastest – and most cost-effective – way to convey merchandise from one

68

CONCLUSION

In a parable drawn from the life of Christ, Jesus famously protected the boat of Peter the fisherman and the apostles on a stormy Sea of Galilee (Mark 4.35-41): “A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him… He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

To fully conceptualise boat building in the ancient Mediterranean it is important to embrace the fact that these were inherited skills passed down from father to son. For this reason applying ethnographical archaeology to the study of ancient marine architecture is likely to provide a fruitful avenue of research, since there are clear parallels between depictions in floor mosaics and marine construction in the same region in the present day. It is also clear that the level of detail invested in floor mosaics varied considerably, even within single provinces, from the extreme stylization of the Rayân and Sorân craft (Chapter 3) to the fine details of the Beth Loya and Beth Guvrin vessels (Chapter 5). This variance may be due to differences of the subjects, to the spaces allocated to them, but ultimately to economy: how much did a client wish to invest in any given composition and in the statement he or she wished to make.

The symbolism of the mast as the cross, against which Jesus stands on the Church of St. Stephen mosaic, again made the ship perfect subject matter for the early Church. As Clement of Alexandria (AD 153-217) asserted in his Paedogogus (3.11), “And let our seals be either a dove, or a fish, or a ship scudding before the wind, or a musical lyre, which Polycrates used, or a ship’s anchor, which Seleucus got engraved as a device; and if there be one fishing, he will remember the apostle, and the children drawn out of the water.”

Interestingly, mosaics of the modern era continued to depict marine vessels, as exemplified in the Chapel of St. Gregory, Jerusalem, and the Church of St. Stephen, Bet Gemal (Chapter 9), both built in the 20th century. Neither represents either contemporary or ancient vessels accurately, but was a contemporary means to an end – stock motifs drawn on to complete the pictorial narratives. Just as the Ark remained a central icon in the 20th century Chapel of St. Gregory in Israel, and the Church of St. Stephen, Israel, built in 1932, again was seemingly inspired by age-old Crusader art to depict Jesus standing on a European cog – a distant memory of the kind of ship in which many Crusaders travelled to the Holy Land, never to return home – so Byzantine clients and craftsmen dwelt on ancient themes, now tailored to contemporary theology and aesthetics. The Jews of Beth Shean happily incorporated the myth of Odysseus and the Sirens in a mosaic scene, including the realism of local amphora types, perhaps an indication of the source of the house owner’s economic wealth and the allegorical centrality of the idea of redemption in Judaism. The allusion to Jonah and the whale on the Beth Guvrin and perhaps Lod floor may be a more purely aesthetic use of biblical themes.

The ancient mosaics of the Mediterranean region provide a useful indication of the wealth and aesthetics of the ancient world – an aesthetic that artists attempt to emulate in the modern era, often with little success. Perhaps this reflects a lack of patience or the difficulty in emulating a lost artistic skill set. Mosaic specialist Professor Asher Ovadiah (based at the University of Tel Aviv) has explained to the writer that when asked to assess whether a floor is genuinely ancient or a modern fake, he recognises a modern forgery because it is not laid with the same accuracy and patience as in antiquity. Studying depictions of marine craft in ancient mosaics contributes to the discipline of Graeco-Roman and Byzantine mosaics in several ways. This is especially true of stylistic aspects, which seek to trace the diffusion of style within regions by individual ‘schools’, ‘workshops’, artistic ‘circles’, and itinerant craftsmen and how form and style influenced mosaic production between regions (Italy to Gaul, North Africa to the Levant, and so on).

Finally, the ship was perfect subject matter for Early Christian mosaics, which explains its presence in the churches of the region. In Late Antique symbolism the Church was represented as tossed on a sea of disbelief and persecution, finally to reach a safe port with its cargo of human souls. Such imagery derived from the Ark saving Noah from the Flood (1 Peter 3.20-21): “…who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. And corresponding to that, baptism now saves you – not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience – through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

Studying marine craft in mosaic pavements also reveals the transmission of technical configurations through time, as evidenced by the replication of the same details through to the modern era. This is an especially informative social dynamic, albeit nuanced. Marine motifs are also clearly juxtaposed with scenes from myth and this aspect feeds into exegetic studies of ancient floor mosaics. In sum, the method applied throughout this book provides a common bridge linking every aspect of mosaic studies – style, exegetical, socio-economics, ethnography. It is hoped that the unification of a field blighted by mutual exclusivity is perhaps this work’s principal contribution.

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MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Index Abuna Kleofas Kikilides; 42

Dead Sea; 4, 23, 26, 34, 37, 42, 43, 44

Aeneas; 27

Dionysus; 3

Akkadian texts; 13

Diospolis i.e. Lod; 27, 35

Alexander the Great; 2, 6, 13

Edict of Milan; 42

Amarna Letters, 379 clay tablets; 31

Edomites; 35

El-Amarna; 59, 60, 69

Egypt; 2, 3, 4, 31, 40, 42, 46, 54, 56, 57, 58, 66, 68

Amman Amsterdam, sailer; 28, 66

Eleutheropolis i.e. Beth Guvrin, Roman period; 35, 38

Antakya i.e. Antioch on the Orontes; 6

St. Etchmiadzin; 63

Antiochus, king in Syria; 6, 13

Fulk V, Count of Anjou; 35

Anastasius I; 4

St. George church; 42, 49

Ararat; 60, 63

Gibelin i.e. Beth Guvrin, Crusader period; 35

Ariadne; 30, 31

Gokstad, Viking ship; 5

Ashurnasirpal II; 13

St. Gregory; 42, 49, 60, 62, 68, 69

Aurelian; 6

Hadrian, Publius Aelius Hadrianus; 60

Aziras – king of Amuru; 13

Hama; 13

Babylonian exile; 27

Hasmonaean; 35

Babylon; 35, 57

Helena, Queen; 42

Bar Kochba Revolt; 35

Herod the Great; 35

Ben-Hadad II; 13

Hittite; 13

Beth Guvrin, 3, 4, 13, 22, 23, 35, 36, 37, 38, 42, 44, 66, 67, 69

St. Hripsime; 60 St. Hovel; 60

Beth Guvrin i.e. Eleutheropolis, Roman period; 35, 38 Beth Guvrin i.e. Gibelin, Crusader period, 35

Jerusalem; 23, 27, 29, 35, 38, 42, 54, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 69

Beth Guvrin e.i. Beth Jibrin, Arab period, 35

St. John; 63

Beth Jibrin e.i. Beth Guvrin, Arab period, 35

Josephus Flavius; 23, 54

Chemosh, Moab’s chief deity; 49

Jordan River; 38, 43, 44

Cleopatra – Hellenistic queen; 14

Judea; 27, 35, 38

Clermont-Ganneau, C.; 43

Justinian; 42

Constantine, Roman Emperor; 6, 42, 60

Khamis, A.; 40

Constantinus II, Roman Emperor; 6, 42

Lagrange, M.J.; 42 70

INDEX

Lebanon; 19, 20, 21, 30, 31, 42, 43, 67, 66, 68

Saladin; 35

Leo III; 4

Scythopolis i.e. Beth Shean; 31

Libanius; 6

Seleucus I Nicator; 6, 13

Licinius; 42

Holy Sepulchre; 29, 60

Lod i.e. Diospolis; 1, 4, 23, 27, 29, 35, 40, 66, 69

Severus, Lucius Septimius; 14, 27, 35

Madaba; 4, 26, 34, 35, 37, 38, 42, 43, 44, 46, 68

Sidon; 29

Mary Magdalena; 23

Strabo; 23, 54

Marcus Aurelius Caracalla; 6

Suppiluiumas; 13

Mesh; 49

Tarichaeae i.e. Migdal Nunia; 8, 23, 25, 26, 29, 34, 67, 68

Moab; 42, 44, 49

Téthys; 9, 18

Mt. Nebo; 42, 49, 50, 51

Theseus; 3, 30, 31

Nehemia; 27

Thutmose III; 13

Nicophorus II Phocas; 6

Tiberias; 23

Niya; 13

St. Todik; 60

Orontes; 6, 11, 13

Urahilina (Urhilina) or Irhuleni; 13

Oseberg, Viking ship; 5

St. Vartan; 29, 60

Palestrina; 3, 4, 35, 38, 59

Vespasian; 23

Papyrus Zenon 59665; 4

Vincent, H.; 42

Philip the Arab, Julius Verus Philippus; 18

Yongyan; 5

Phoenicia; 1, 35

St. Zvartnotz; 63

Qasr-el-Lebia; 41

71

MARITIME MOSAICS OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Glossary Beam: the breadth of a ship at its widest point.

Planking: wooden planks covering the hull.

Brace: a line for changing the direction of the yard and therefore the sail.

Port: the left-hand side of a ship (opposite to starboard). Rail: the railing around the deck.

Brail: one of the ropes made fast to the after leech of a sail to raise and drop it.

Rig: method by which sails are designed to fit. Rigging: ropes and chains used to support and work the sails.

Battering ram: bronze appendage attached the keel of a warship at the bows used to attack enemy craft.

Rudder: a wooden device attached upright to the stern for steering.

Cog: a wide spacious type of transport ship, emerged in medieval Europe. Coracle: a small, basket-shaped small boat.

Scroll head: a scroll-shaped figurehead attached to the bow.

Deck: horizontal surface on a ship above the hold, as a floor in a building.

Square rig: square sail. Starboard: the right-hand side of a ship (opposite to port).

Figurehead: an ornament on the stem of a vessel above the waterline.

Stay: a large, strong rope used to support a mast.

Forecastle: section of the upper deck, located at the stem.

Stem, bow, prow: the forward part of a ship going forward.

Galley: kitchen structure. Gunwale: the upper edge of the side of a boat.

Stempost: vertical timber in a ship’s bow.

Hull: the frame or body of a ship.

Stern, aft: the hind part of a ship.

Keel: a longitudinal timber extending along the centreline of the bottom of a vessel from stem to stern, supporting the whole frame.

Sternpost: vertical timber in a ship’s stern, to which the rudder is fastened. Strake: planking under the gunwale from stem to stern.

Mast: a tall spar rising more or less from the keel or deck of a vessel, which supports the yard, sail, etc.

Topmast: an upper, secondary mast on a sailing vessel, supported by a heavier, lower mast.

Moor: to secure a ship by attaching it to a fixed object on dry land.

Yard: a long spar slung crosswise to a mast and suspending a sail.

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