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Roman Life – Homes<br />
Thousands of mosaics have been found in excavated buildings. Usually, the styles of the designs<br />
help to date them. Mosaics were mainly used on floors or walls but sometimes on ceilings from the<br />
first century AD. They were used throughout the Empire for ornate decoration in both public and<br />
private buildings. Much later, expensive materials like gold and glass were used on the walls and<br />
ceilings of church buildings. Some mosaics were designed as maps, giving geographical information on various<br />
regions of the Roman Empire.<br />
Many mosaics are valuable sources of information for experts studying life in Roman times. Mosaic panels of<br />
scenes from around the Empire show pictures of their gods, groups of hippopotamus hunters, picnic parties<br />
under the trees, flying ibises, farming scenes, pleasure barges, temple scenes with robed priests and worshippers—<br />
the whole range of life at that time.<br />
If the pattern or scene was a complicated one, the pieces of stone had to be much smaller to capture the finer<br />
details of the picture. Sometimes over a million tiny cubes of stone would be used in a mosaic which might only<br />
be one square metre in area.<br />
TEACHERS<br />
N OTE<br />
Viewing Sample<br />
– 36 – <strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Rome</strong> Prim-Ed Publishing www.prim-ed.com
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