Tuesday 26 January 2010

Mosaics: El Djem Archeological Museum

The colosseum at El Djem is spectacular but also not to be missed is the archeological museum on the outskirts of the town. The mosaics are extremely fine - superior to those even at the Bardo and they also had a very interesting reconstruction of a Roman villa. Among my favourites mosaics was this fragment of pears (or gourds?) - I could happily have taken it home
There was a whole room of peacock mosaics, many with brightly coloured shiny glass in the 'eyes'
The tesserae used were very small and the makers skilled in graduation of colour. Ian's favourite was one of a boar being brought down by 2 lions ( detail) above ) the blood was very realistic . I admired less gory examples!


1 comment:

Susan Briscoe said...

The pears/gourds would make an interesting little quilt...