Cyrenaican Church Floor Mosaics of the Justinianic Period: Decoration or Meaning?

The well-preserved church floor mosaics of the Justinianic period discovered at Qasr Libya have been dismissed as a haphazard collection of motifs, most of which are purely decorative. The author presents arguments to question this statement and carries out a re-examination to see if a symbolic prog...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inLibyan studies Vol. 45; pp. 85 - 96
Main Author Cowell, Norman D.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.11.2014
Subjects
Archaeology
Architects
Bible
Churches
Fauna
Meaning
Symbolism
Symbols
Theology
Cyrenaica
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Summary:The well-preserved church floor mosaics of the Justinianic period discovered at Qasr Libya have been dismissed as a haphazard collection of motifs, most of which are purely decorative. The author presents arguments to question this statement and carries out a re-examination to see if a symbolic programme can be recovered from them. In this task two principal sources of imagery are drawn on; bible passages and, in view of the wide variety of fauna represented, the stories in early bestiaries where the alleged behaviour of animals is given a theological interpretation. This analysis was extended to cover a selection of other church floor mosaics of similar age. In each case it has been found possible to construct a coherent programme of symbolism and to link this to rites which would have been celebrated in those locations.
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ISSN:0263-7189
2052-6148
DOI:10.1017/lis.2014.6