{"id":7299,"date":"2024-01-09T06:10:09","date_gmt":"2024-01-09T11:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/?p=7299"},"modified":"2024-01-09T06:10:11","modified_gmt":"2024-01-09T11:10:11","slug":"this-2300-year-old-mosaic-made-of-shells-and-coral-has-just-been-found-buried-under-rome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/09\/this-2300-year-old-mosaic-made-of-shells-and-coral-has-just-been-found-buried-under-rome\/","title":{"rendered":"This 2,300-year-old mosaic made of shells and coral has just been found buried under Rome"},"content":{"rendered":"


CNN –<\/em><\/strong> A five-year dig into the side of\u00a0Rome<\/a>\u2019s Palatine Hill yielded treasure last week when archaeologists discovered a deluxe banquet room dating from around the first or second century BC, featuring a sizable, intact and brightly colored wall mosaic.<\/p>

Estimated to be around 2,300 years old, the work is part of a larger aristocratic mansion, located near the Roman Forum, that has been under excavation since 2018.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>

Almost five meters long (16.4 ft) and featuring depictions of vines, lotus leaves, tridents, trumpets, helmets and mythological marine creatures, the mosaic scene was painstakingly created using mother of pearl, shells, corals, shards of precious glass and flecks of marble. The piece is framed by polychrome crystals, spongy travertine, and exotic, ancient Egyptian blue tiles.<\/p>

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Being buried under the earth on Rome’s Palatine Hill has protected this fragile mosaic from the elements for centuries.
Emanuele Antonio Minerva\/MiC<\/sub>
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What makes this discovery \u201cunmatched,\u201d said archaeologist Alfonsina Russo, head of the\u00a0Colosseum Archaeological Park<\/a>\u00a0in charge of the site, is not only the incredible conservation of the mosaic, but its decoration which also features celebratory scenes of naval and land battles likely funded \u2014 and won \u2014 by an extremely wealthy aristocratic patron who commemorated the victories on their walls.<\/p>

The intricacy of the mosaic\u2019s depictions of victory have surprised the team working on the project. They show a coastal walled town with lookout towers and loggias \u2014 which Russo said could be an ideal or a real-life location \u2014 sitting atop a cliff designed with pieces of travertine rock. Scenes of sailing ships with raised sails also feature, alongside depictions of mythical sea monsters swallowing enemy fleets.<\/p>

Archaeologists are trying to ascertain whether the delicate \u2014 and expensive, for the time \u2014 coral branches used in the display came from the Mediterranean or the Red Sea\u00a0(the nearest and most common oceans used by Romans to extract materials). A rare bluish glass paste also featured in the design likely came from the ancient Egyptian city of Alexandria, the team believe.<\/p>

\u201cThis banquet hall, which measures 25 square meters (270 square foot), is just one space within a \u2018domus\u2019 (the latin word for house) spread on several floors,\u201d Russo told CNN in an interview. \u201cIn ancient times, when powerful noble families inhabited the Palatine Hill, it was customary to use rich decorative elements as a symbol to show-off opulence and high social rank.\u201d<\/p>

The chamber, deemed a \u201cjewel\u201d by Russo, was an outdoor banquet hall overlooking a garden, likely used during summer to entertain guests.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>

Such an elaborate space would also have been used to impress guests with water games, which were very popular amongst nobility at the time. \u201cWe have found lead pipes embedded within the decorated walls, built to carry water inside basins or to make fountains spout to create water games,\u201d said Russo.<\/p>

Marco Rossi, professor of Roman antiquities and head of the mosaic lab at Rome\u2019s Universit\u00e0 degli Studi di Roma Tre pointed out that these summer banquet rooms were not only somewhere that hosts and guests would go to relax but also used by the mansion owner as a signifier of their wealth and rank.<\/p>

\u201cMosaics are usually found on floors, but this runs across the entire front wall and has been incredibly well-preserved,\u201d said Rossi of the piece. \u201cIt\u2019s not been ruined by the weight of debris \u2014 as can happen to some mosaics on the ground \u2014 and despite being delicate, it hasn\u2019t so much as chipped across the centuries.\u201d<\/p>

The discovery of an entire wall mosaic is extremely rare, Rossi added, not least because these pieces are more delicate than those for the floor which were designed to be walked upon and withstand pressure.<\/p>

The location of the grand home has also helped the wall\u2019s preservation, scientists believe. Positioned on the side of Rome\u2019s famous Palatine Hill and subsequently covered over by centuries of mud and earth as the land has moved, the structure and treasures within it have been protected from the air and light by layers of ground.<\/p>

While this new discovery still has a lot of secrets to reveal \u2014 why the property was abandoned and how long ago, for example \u2014 Russo believes there is one mystery archaeologists could perhaps solve: The identity of its owner, likely a Roman senator.<\/p>

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Work continues to uncover more of the secrets of the large home, which could have once belonged to a Roman senator.
Emanuele Antonio Minerva\/MiC<\/sub>

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Read more here<\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CNN – A five-year dig into the side of\u00a0Rome\u2019s Palatine Hill yielded treasure last week when archaeologists discovered a deluxe banquet room dating from around the first or second century…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7300,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1749,1750,415,1748],"class_list":{"0":"post-7299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-coral-mosaic","9":"tag-palatine-hill","10":"tag-rome","11":"tag-shell-mosaic"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/mosaic-coral.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7305,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7299\/revisions\/7305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}