Helen’s Rope Patterned Mosaic
Helen Edwards chose this mosaic as her object. From MODES she was able to discover that this a reconstruction of a larger mosaic with a double guilloche margin in small red, white and grey tesserae from the villa at Norton Disney, which is about 8 miles from Newark. Norton Disney was a fairly large villa site, which was in use from the end of the first century AD until the middle of the fourth century AD. Helen was able to find out that mosaics such as this were common on the floor of Roman villas, particularly in the triclinium, what we would know as the dining room, where diners would have lounged on benches set around the floor of the room. The area underneath the benches would probably not have had mosaics on them as they would not have been seen. The idea was to impress your dinner guests with the decoration of your home, which would have been used to entertain clients, i.e. people who owed you money or favours in return for your patronage. Helen was also able to find out that the guilloche decoration was an ornamental pattern formed of two or more curved bands that interlace to repeat a circular design, so giving the rope style pattern. Many mosaics depicted scenes from Roman or Greek mythology, although not in this instance, but Helen was able to see some of the larger, more elaborate mosaics during the visit to the British Museum.
Helen examining a mosaic at the British Museum
Helen chose this object because she liked the pattern of the mosaic, but also because she thought about the time taken by the mosaic makers to put each tesserae in its place. She likes art and appreciates just how long it must have taken to create a mosaic floor. To put mosaics in a modern context Helen saw one recently laid into the floor of Nottingham Castle Museum.
