Unique Representation of a Mosaics Craftsman in a Roman Pavement from the Ancient Province Syria

Abstract

The subject of this paper is the study of the figured representation of a mosaics-craftsman in a fragmentary pavement, preserved in the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. Of unknown provenance, apparently comes from the territory of ancient Syria in the Eastern Roman Empire. Such representation is a hapax, not only in the Roman mosaics of Syria, but also in the corpus of Roman Empire, since, although several mosaic inscriptions in some pavements, which show the name of the mosaic artisans and / or different names for different functions of the trades related to the development of mosaics, and even the reference to the workshop, who were teachers or members of his team of craftsmen, the figured representation of a mosaicist, in the instant to be doing his work, is truly unique

Keywords

• mosaic, mosaics-craftsman, Syria, Eastern Roman Empire, Late Antiquity