Roman mosaic1/13/2024 Floors laid in coarse tesserae of one colour were put down in poor houses or in the less important rooms of finer buildings and this work was call ‘Opus Signinum’. Correctly this term applied to all floors in small, cut pieces. The art of laying tessellated floors was called `Opus Tessallatum’. These small pieces were called ‘tesserae’ or ‘tessellae’ and were usually cubes of approximately a centimetre square. the practice had begun of using small, specially hand-cut pieces of stone, marble, clay and glass, which considerably extended the scope of the mosaicist. At this time small black and white natural pebbles were used to construct patterns and pictures, with the use of colour being rare. but the earliest wave of activity seems to have been in Greece in the fourth and third centuries B.C. In Phrygia (modern Turkey) a mosaic has been found that dates back to the eighth century B.C. Mosaic making appears to have spread to the Western Roman Empire from Greek lands. Over 90 tessellated (mosaic) pavements have been discovered from Roman Corinium. The pavements from Cirencester form one of the finest collections of mosaics known from Roman Britain. In the Roman world the full expression of the wealth of a Roman citizen lay in the quality and number of mosaic floors in his house, and the style of a pavement tells us something of popular taste. They have great value both as works of art and as social and economic documents. Mosaics are among the most attractive works of art to have survived from the Roman period, and Britain has produced nearly 800 examples – many of great skill and beauty.
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