ANCIENT MOSAICS AT MASADA

Magnificent colors, vivid design in this mosaic fragment from Masada

People of the Roman-era world used stone mosaics to decorate their floors - in effect creating a patterned stone carpet.

The mosaics at Masada were of two kinds:

• black and white geometric patterns that closely imitate work that was common at the time in Italy
• colored mosaics such as the one above.

This floor mosaic (above) shows common Greek patterns, but it has dominant symbols which represent the Seven Kinds of Produce mentioned in Deuteronomy 8:8: 'wheat and barley, vines and fig trees and pomegranates, olive trees and honey' - which the Promised Land will give.

Representations of fruit do no break the Second Commandment, which forbids images of living creatures.

For more about mosaics in Herod's palaces - the method of construction, the symbolism they contain, etc., see 'Herodium Mosaics'. 

Two views of a mosaic floor in a stairwell at Masada