Jewish mosaics from Roman Tunisia at the Brooklyn Museum

Jewish Mosaic depicting  the Personification of Rome 1st-2nd century CE from Hammam Lif, Tunisia

The remains of the synagogue at Hammam Lif, Tunisia, were uncovered by the French army captain Ernest de Prudhomme in 1883, while preparing a garden for planting. Since his fortuitous discovery, archaeologists have identified nearly three hundred other synagogues, dating to between 300 and 600 CE in the Mediterranean region. The principal mosaics from Hammam Lif (called Naro in ancient times) were added to the synagogue’s sanctuary about 500 C.E. as the gift of a woman named Julia Nap, indicated by an inscription within the floor. Additional mosaic panels, also collected by Captain Prudhomme, came from other rooms in the synagogue or from nearby buildings. These other panels were made earlier, in the first or second century CE, and feature animals, a male figure, and a female figure. Jews traditionally traced their arrival in Tunisia to the period of Phoenician domination, but certainly had arrived by the first century BCE, in Roman times. Many Latin-speaking Italians also settled in Tunisia during Roman rule. Objects found at the site suggest connections and interchanges between pagan, Christian, and Jewish symbolism in a relatively fluid cultural landscape despite official state repression of certain groups at different times. Images courtesy of the museum.

Jewish Mosaic depicting  a gazelle 1st-2nd century CE from Hammam Lif, Tunisia

Jewish Mosaic depicting  a lion, symbol of divine power, 1st-2nd century CE from Hammam Lif, Tunisia

Jewish Mosaic depicting a young man 1st-2nd century CE from Hammam Lif, Tunisia

Jewish Mosaic depicting  a bird with vines 6th century CE from Hammam Lif, Tunisia

Jewish Mosaic depicting  a date palm 6th century CE from Hammam Lif, Tunisia

Jewish Mosaic depicting  a duck with vines 6th century CE from Hammam Lif, Tunisia

Jewish Mosaic depicting  a fish 6th century CE from Hammam Lif, Tunisia

Jewish Mosaic depicting  a lion 6th century CE from Hammam Lif, Tunisia

Jewish Mosaic depicting  a partridge 6th century CE from Hammam Lif, Tunisia

Jewish Mosaic depicting  a rooster 6th century CE from Hammam Lif, Tunisia

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"Legacy of Carthage" exhibit tours Japan

I saw a note about this wonderful exhibit that is presently opening in Kanazawa, Japan. I wonder if this lovely relief depicts the legendary queen Dido?

The “Legacy of Carthage” will travel throughout 10 Japanese cities to showcase Tunisia’s rich Carthaginian and Roman legacy. The exhibition includes rare, authentic pieces dating back to the Punic and Phoenician eras. It also offers an opportunity for Japanese visitors to admire some splendid 2 nd and 3 rd century frescoes and mosaics discovered in Carthage, El Jem,Utica, Sbeitla, Sousse, as well as in other Tunisian cities. - Tunisia Online News

The exhibit is slated to travel from Kanazawa to Tokyo, then Okyama, Kyoto, Hamamatsu, Miyazaki and Nagoya. I wish it would make an appearance here in the U.S. I saw some truly spectacular mosaics from Tunisia at an exhibit at the Getty Villa a year ago and I would love to see more remnants of Roman North Africa as well as pre-Roman artifacts.

As much as I love to study Roman civilization, I find Carthage, a colony of Phoenicia, fascinating as well. Its too bad that Rome felt compelled to destroy Carthage instead of absorbing it like it did so many other cultures. Here's the first of a series of videos about the fate of Carthage, entitled "The Roman Holocaust":



Of course, one of my favorite videos about Carthage is "Engineering an Empire".

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Underground in Tunisia

Nice piece in Mother Earth News about the energy efficiency of underground Roman villas in Tunisia

"THREE BASIC FLOOR PLANS

Interestingly enough, most of Caesar's subjects who settled in Bulla Regia used one of three basic floor plans: [1] a vestibule running along three contiguous main rooms whose rear windows opened — in common — onto a large, deep air shaft, [2] a central courtyard, or peristyle, surrounded by rooms that had aboveground windows and openings in their ceilings, and [3] a hallway with shallow rooms on either side that incorporated windows set high in the upper walls. (The basement dwellings, though often smaller than those on the surface, frequently duplicated portions of the structures' ground-level floor plans.)

PLAN NUMBER ONE

The "House of Amphitrite" is a large version of the first design. (In addition to the three main rooms, it has two tiny chambers situated across the vestibule.) This residence, the floor of which is almost 17 feet below ground level, still retains some stucco wall panels and mosaics.

The inlaid lobby floor — picturing a female face framed by a leafy border — is in a state of excellent preservation, and visitors can still see where a marble fountain was once embedded in a nearby wall. The large central dining room has two columns facing the entryway, a vaulted ceiling, and a pastel floor mosaic portraying the "Triumph of the Marine Venus". (Years ago, an erroneous identification of the pictured goddess as Amphitrite, wife of Neptune, gave the house its name.)

PLAN NUMBER TWO

A dwelling known as the "Hunting Palace" is typical of Plan Two. Below the spacious courtyard (almost 27 by 32 feet) on the main floor, eight 16-foot-high Corinthian columns support the ground-level ceiling ... which is pierced with hexagonal openings to serve as air and light sources for the underground peristyle.

The rooms open to the north and west. Three bays, which are separated by two large columns, give access to a large dining room, whose decorated floor covers a circular storage cistern more than four feet in diameter. Baked earthen pipes in the ridged molding of the arched ceiling empty into the reservoir.

Simple mosaics and raised platforms indicate the one-time placement of beds in three sleeping chambers, which are copies of those upstairs. (Most of the rooms are rectangular, with two ceiling holes apiece to admit light and air.)

PLAN NUMBER THREE

One good example of the third floor plan is the "House of the Peacock". Fourteen steps descend about ten feet . . . to a passageway with rooms on both sides. The first chamber to the left is a sleeping room: It was identified as such on the basis of the bed platform against the back wall. The large room to the right opens — on the south side — to a smaller chamber which has an apse with an almost effaced peacock mosaic.

(Across the road from "the Peacock" is another interesting Plan-Three house. Its ingenious owner simply transformed two pre-existing deep cisterns into rooms when the family decided to "move down".)"

...More

More on Bulla Regia (Great Photos!!!)

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