For #MosaicMonday This sumptuous pebble mosaic, made up of flowers, leaves and spirals, a wonder of symmetrical beauty and precision from the oikos of the palace in Aigai (modern Vergina) has four females in each corner whose dresses morph into a palmette. Middle of 4th cent BC

Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy (1755-1849) - what a name too ! - was the first in 1806 to write about #polychromy in ancient Greek art m. And what a colourful life he led! #ancientbluesky

Birds of a feather! From the Louvre (I’m assuming it’s still there😃) Provenance Daphne near Antakya beginning of 3rd cent AD #MosaicMonday

First Human-Faced Pillar Discovered at Karahantepe #archaeology #karahantepe #tastepeler #gobeklitepe #news #neolithic #turkiye www.archaeologs.com/n/first-huma...

Something different for #MosaicMonday a micromosaic! A copy of the mosaic of doves mentioned by Pliny but copied from the mosaic found in Hadrian’s villa, itself a copy. This micromosaic made of tiny glass tesserae, 56mm, in 1779 by Giacomo Rafaelli in Rome 📷 Trustees of British Museum

Details of the late 4th cent BC pebble mosaic in #Pella from an andron showing exquisite use of skiagraphia and chiaroscuro perhaps of the figures of Alexander (l) and his friend Hephaistos and signed by Gnosis (Had the entire site to myself!) #MosaicMonday #Classics/AncientBlueSky

#MosaicMonday Dionysus Delos Late 2nd/early Ist cent BC

For those who can read Swedish my article in Svenska Dagbladet about pebble mosaics and the floor as a spectacle #MosaicMonday

#Classics/AncientWorld #mosaics #SvDKultur Min understreckare i dagens SvD om kiselstensmosaikens utveckling. Jag ville ha en bild av Kronhjortsjakten i Pella men Pressens bildmaterial saknade en sådan, tyvärr www.svd.se/a/939Kgl/de-...

#MosaicMonday Why was Sosos so famous acc to Pliny? He mentions two mosaics seemingly in the same room in Pergamon, both starting a mosaic meme as copies were made long after. None of his mosaics have survived (stolen as war booty as he was so celebrated?). This is a fragment of a mosaic ….1/

#MosaicMonday #AncientBlueSky An unusually early polychrome pebble mosaic of a female (deity?) from Epidamnos (Durrës, Albania). Second half 4th cent BC 📷 @albania360.com

opus vermiculatum: It is the use of minute tesserae arranged mostly in a curvilinear way (ie wormlike) primarily to outline and model figures and allows the mosaicist to imitate and even emulate the finest lines of a painter’s brush by being able to condense colour and shading #MosaicMonday

www.nature.com/articles/d41... #AncientBlueSky

(7) Scanning Herculaneum Scrolls at Scale scrollprize.substack.com/p/scanning-h...

For #MosaicMonday Four mosaics from Anatolia preceding Greek pebble mosaics

The apotropaic sign of Tanit from the vestibule in the House of Dolphins owned by wealthy Phoenician on Delos. 📷 me #MosaicMonday

artsandculture.google.com/story/stroll... #Classics/AncientWorld #MosaicMonday #AncuentBlueSky

A humourous trompe l’oeil touch on this fragment made by this mosaicist who worked under Attalus Ii around 160BC in Pergamon- bit like a Post-it note! #MosaicMonday #Classics/AncientGreece

#Classics/AncientWorld www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...

#MosaicMonday a Ptolemaic mosaic showing three winged Erotes hunting a stag, surrounded by a border of real and mythical animals, incl two animals that signify an Egyptian setting—the gazelle and hyena. Mixed pebble and tessera pieces. Early 3rd cent BC 📷 ℅ Archives du Centre d’Études Alexandrines

Thousands of people are ditching Tesla. Here’s one of them with a message you can see from space. Location: Black Rock Sands, Wales, UK Led By Donkeys is 100% funded by small donations.

For #MosaicMonday a question instead of a photo! Why were figural mosaics originally placed on floors? Any good answers out there?

#MosaicMonday and now for something different…

For #MosaicMonday a close-up of the hippocampus in this mosaic from ancient Lebena/Lentas on Crete which shows the background with black pebbles and the use of tessellated white marble for the body. An early example of the transition from pebbles to tesserae, mid 3rd cent BC 📷 from Gettyimages.com

Mining and smelting iron in southern India dated to the late 4th millennium BC! #Neolithic www.bbc.com/news/article...

Was Apelles history’s first cocaine addict when he apparently said “nulla dies sine linea”? #AncientBlueSky

Quo usque tandem abutere, cancer, patientia mea? Quam diu etiam furor iste tuus me eludet? Quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia?

A multi-analytical study of the Montelirio beaded attires: Marine resources, sumptuary crafts, and female power in copper age Iberia | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Archaeologists discover France’s oldest Neolithic settlement on the French Riviera archaeologymag.com/2025/01/fran...

For #MosaicMonday these modern day mosaics represent a wonderfully touching story about their site in Shepherdess Walk Park in Hackney created by Tessa Hunkin. Photos courtesy of livinglondonhistory.com/the-stunning...

A floor mosaic as an obituary, well almost, narrating someone’s ecclesiastical career in the church at Philippoi, middle 6th century #MosaicMonday

For #MosaicMonday an overwhelming piece of Neptune and Amphitrite riding rather slipshod over a tranquil fishing scene, complete with a nosy-looking octopus. From Cirta/Constantine (Algeria), early 4th century now in the Louvre 🥫Wikimedia

‘Something horrible’: Somerset pit reveals bronze age cannibalism

For #MosaicMonday some fish sauce! From the vast Casa di Aulus Umbricius Scaurus in Pompeii this is from one of the atria where AUS turned his mosaic floor into an advert flaunting his wares - amphorae of garum and liquamen. Ist cent CE Photos from PompeiiinPictures which provides credits

Many of you will have heard of the sudden and sad loss of one of the foundation pillars of archaeology today. So much of our Heritage landscape was shaped by him. So let's take a moment to remember him, and what his legacy is. Colin Renfrew . 25th July 1937 - 24th Nov 2024

For #MosaicMonday details from the Stag Hunt pebble mosaic, late 4th cent BC in #Pella, one signed by the unknown Gnosis

For my first #MosaicMonday on BlueSky! From the “House of Dionysus” in Paphos, late 2nd cent (I think!)