Today I thought I would take us back into the deepest depths of time to discover the first mosaic made out of recognizable tesserae, as opposed to pebbles. Now I know this means this isn't the earliest mosaic, but it did make a catchier title!
A little bit of background; this mosaic was found at the Ninhursag Temple (as you may have guessed from the title) in Tell al'Ubaid, Iraq. Tell al'Ubaid west of Ur, pictured on the map below.
The temple itself is dated to 2,500 BC, which is also the age of the mosaic, which is the Early Dynastic period in Mesopotamia, of which Iraq was once part. So this mosaic is over 4,500 years old!
The mosaic in question is rather unusual as it does not depict anything in particular. Nonetheless, it uses tesserae for decoration, so I think it counts! It is also unusual as it is a column, whereas most mosaics tend to be on square or rectangular surfaces. So without further ado, the Ninhursag Temple mosaic!
What is very interesting about this mosaic was how it was made. The inner core was a palm log which was then coated in bitumen.The tesserae itself is mother of pearl, pink limestone and black shale, a rather exotic and beautiful combination. Each piece of tesserae had a loop on the back which copper wire was passed through, and then the ends of each wire were twisted into a ring and pressed into the bitumen to attach the tesserae. This seems time consuming and complicated, and I can only assume it was to prevent the fronts of the tesserae from getting spots of bitumen on them!
This particular mosaic was one of two columns that may have been either side of the entrance to the temple, although they were found out of place. It is 59 cm high and 31 cm in diameter, and was excavated by Dr Harry Reginald Holland Hall in 1919. That is a name and a half, right?
I hope you have found this blog post informative - I know I definitely enjoyed reading about it!
If there are any periods in history you want me to look at mosaics before, please let me know in the comments!
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