Art and Archaeology

Abstract

Mosaics have not fared well in the hands of classical archaeologists. Modern viewers have traditionally treated them as panel-paintings laid out on the floor: consider how mosaics are frequently displayed on museum walls, for example, or how book reproductions perpetuate the ideal of a ‘vertical’ bird's-eye view. Scholars, too, have been quick to identify mythological subjects, homing in on ‘figurative’ motifs. But we still lack an adequate framework for approaching more ‘ornamental’ components – or for challenging that segregation in the first place.