The Lod Roman mosaic – on tour
The Lod Roman Mosaic is on display at Waddesdon Manor until November 2, 2014.
Sometimes a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do and if it involves driving half way across England to see a Roman mosaic, then so be it.
The Lod Roman mosaic is currently exhibiting at Waddesdon Manor, near Aylesbury. Since it usually lives near Tel Aviv, in Israel, my chances of going to see it there are virtually zero. So desperate measures had to be taken.
I was staying with a friend in Bristol who kindly (recklessly perhaps), offered to drive me over to see the mosaic. We set off on a clear blue summer day on what was meant to be a jolly jaunt with maybe a pub lunch and a leisurely stroll in the gardens thrown in.
A long journey
Two years ago my husband and I drove a car full of boys, aged 9, 13 and 15, from Greece to Turkey’s eastern border with Syria. I wanted to see the mosaics of Gaziantep and a few thousand miles wasn’t going to stand in my way. This trip to see the Lod Roman mosaics was surely going to be a piece of cake. Ah, not so!
There seemed to be road works around every corner. Add music festivals, town centre driving and a GPS with its own little penchant for narrow country lanes. Our jolly jaunt morphed into a massive expedition. However, it gave us plenty of time to discuss life’s dilemmas. We covered the agonies of love, children, plans, ambitions and a whole lot more before we arrived several hours later, bedraggled, hungry and hot.
History of the mosaic
But arrive we did, and there, in its own wing of the manor’s converted stables, was the Lod Roman mosaic. Discovered in 1997 by road workers in Lod (formerly Palestinian Lydda), it was re-covered and then removed in 2009.
The mosaic dates from the 3rd century AD and is thought to have come from a reception room of a rich Roman household. A few of you will be wondering why it is that I have to make such gargantuan efforts to see mosaics. Surely there are perfectly good photographs available on Google? All I can say is that they are entirely different in the flesh.
up close and personal
The Lod Roman mosaic is no exception. The part which is on tour includes the huge central section containing the famous panel of wild beasts and a mythical sea creature. At either end of it are two smaller rectangular panels. One is of a marine scene and the other has more depictions of animals, some now extinct or nearly so, as well as a basket of fish. Other parts of the mosaic, including a beautiful panel of birds, stayed behind in Israel.
Let’s take the marine scene first. It show Roman galleons in sail and teaming waters scattered with random shells. If you are a Roman mosaic lover, I bet you will already know the monster fish with its mouth agape and twirly tail. But perhaps the astonishing variety and precision of the other fish, listed as tuna, bream, swordfish, snapper and others, will have escaped you:
They make me want to sit down and start my life again. To abandon boys and meals and car ferrying. I feel like I don’t want to do anything for the rest of my life but make these lovely coloured fish with their spotty bodies and stern expressions.
The Lod Roman Mosaic – central panel
Then there is the central panel. It is renowned for its depiction of African animals, including a giraffe and rhinoceros. Animals so rarely seen in that place and time that they would have seemed as far fetched and (literally) incredible as the mythical sea beast, the ketos, splashing in the water between them.
Roman mosaics are often simply pattern book copies of designs which recur over and over again across the empire. But these mosaics are unusual. Where would the villa owner have come across such exotic animals? And how were the mosaic craftsmen able to portray them so realistically? The same panel also contains the weirdly wonderful mosaic of two leopards perched precariously on either side of an urn. They look faintly perplexed at their own foolishness:
There is also one of a chubby hare gorging on grapes while it can before being leapt upon by a hunting dog:
But while these mosaics were familiar to me and a delight to see like greeting old friends, the ones of moorhens and pigeons, beautiful in their pared down simplicity, were new:
The mosaic also contains the obligatory hunting scenes. There are also corner designs of dolphins on either side of a trident as well as another rather odd one of a fish grappling with a python. Not a juxtaposition one normally comes across. Is this symbolic, if so, of what?
Mosaic Favourites
My two favourites, however, are the rock partridge and family of chicks (top). Also, this peacock, it’s legs akimbo and it’s colours still glorious after 1700 years under ground:
The tiny bird (below the swordfish in the photo above) is the reason why mosaics are worth visiting. Its head is poking out of he bow of a galleon, while an identical bird looks out from the other ship.
When I wrote about little birds in mosaics, I received a comment that it was thought that a bird mosaic at Fishbourne Roman villa was used as a signature. Could these then be the signatures of two Roman craftsmen whose names have been obliterated by time but whose work remains so decidedly alive?
And, yes, we managed to fit in a sandwich and even a wander around the grounds in the sweltering English heat where we couldn’t escape mosaics, this time made of flowers, before setting back on the long journey home:
