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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Source: Nature ancient geoglyphs galore from the Amazon of Ecuador and Bolivia , dated from 600bc to 800 ad #lidar

Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

A glorious Hellenistic xenia mosaic from Pompeii, Casa dei Mosaici geometrici, but now housed in MANN early Ist cent BC #MosaicMonday

Photo ℅ MANN
From a tricllinium in Casa dei Mosaici geometrici in Pompeii early 1stcentury BC showing a motif from Aristotle’s Historia Animalium (7.590b) of an octopus devouring a lobster among all the other fishes

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

#MosaucMonday #Classics/AncientWorld An early 4th century BC pebble mosaic from Eretria on the island of Evia showingThetis on a hippocampus taking the spear and shield to her son Achilles, freshly forged by Hephaistos. An early rare pebble mosaic using tetrachromy

This was placed inside the entrance to the andron where a larger monochrome mosaic was laid. The wave band border represents the sea from the so-called House of Mosaics
@Wikiimedua/Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

#MosaicMonday #AncientBlueSky The remarkable story of a Roman mosaic stolen in the war by a German soldier and sent back to Pompeii but then it was discovered it had no ties to Pompeii at all. pompeiisites.org/en/comunicat...

Apparently from a Roman villa near Folignano in Marche and probably dated to 2nd century AD

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

#MosaicMonday Morgantina in central Sicily has a some fascinating tessellated mosaics dating quite extraordinarily from the middle of the 3rd century BC though Dunbabin cites a terminus ante quem of 211 for the Ganymede mosaic (on the right). The city was founded by Hieron II during the Punic Wars

A close up of a tetrachrome geometric design in perspective

Considered as the earliest known figural mosaic in opus tessellatum showing Zeus as an eagle abducting the Trojan Ganymede

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Reposted by Nigel Moore

Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 25/03/2026

NEW Discovery of 30 prehistoric settlements in south-eastern Anatolia have big implications for our understanding of the origins of sedentary life in Western Asia. 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

#MosaicMonday #Classics/AncientWorld A Flying Mosaic! Even though Philippe Bruneau called it “un tapis en pierre” the lozenges of red, black and white create a 3 dimensional illusion of cubes in perspective. The wave band border is reminiscent of earlier pebble mosaics, from tex Makedonia

From Delos, the Theatre Quarter, House, the so-called House of Cleopatra and Dioscorides (apparently an Athenian couple)
Late 2nd or early Ist cent BC

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Hej, Sveriges 46 rikaste äger mer än vad 8 miljoner svenskar gör tillsammans. Skriv under för en miljardärskatt som stoppar den växande ojämlikheten: kampanj.skiftet.org/s/RmMwM4VY

kampanj.skiftet.org

Rädda Medelhavsmuseet

Medelhavsmuseet och Östasiatiska riskerar att stängas för gott. En hyreshöjning på 57% tar knäcken på kulturen.

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Reposted by Nigel Moore

Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Please support the petition against the planned #closure of #Archaeology at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Archaeology has been a part of Humboldt-Universität academic tradition for almost 200 years, so closing it would break a long-standing research tradition weact.campact.de/petitions/sc...

weact.campact.de

Schließung des Instituts für Archäologie an der HU-Berlin

Die Archäologie gehört seit fast 200 Jahren zur wissenschaftlichen Tradition der Humboldt-Universität. Ihre Schließung bedeutet den Abbruch einer gewachsenen Forschungstradition und eine dauerhafte Sc...

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Reposted by Nigel Moore

Dr Toby Driver @drtobydriver.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

This is such exciting news for the prehistory & early history of western Britain & the wider European seaways, providing further firm evidence for the tin trade documented by classical authors 👇

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

#Classics/Ancient World I suppose most kings and rulers in ancient city states were really only mafiosi who murdered their way to power

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

This photo from an article on bbbc.com caught my eye. It could translate as Psychiatric clinic but belongs to the entrance of the medieval Stiftsbibliothek in St Gallen, Switzerland which is a treasure house of old medieval manuscripts and books some over a 1000 yrs old. Fitting sign!

Photo taken from the article where the source is mentioned. Baroque splendour
Credit 📷 Mike MacEacheran

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Reposted by Nigel Moore

Archaeology Magazine @archaeologymag.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

La Roche-à-Pierrot is the oldest known jewelry workshop in western Europe; the pierced shells and pigment traces found there are at least 42,000 years old. The question: Did Neanderthals or Homo sapiens make the jewelry? archaeology.org/issues/january-february-2026/world/?location=france-2

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

#MosaicMonday - Mosaic Mystery How could these two Alexandrian mosaics be produced mostly in stunning opus vermiculatum at the end of 3rd cent or beginning of 2nd BC when so few tessellated mosaics have ever been discovered anywhere from the 3rd cent? How could such expertise have been developed?

Emblema from Thmuis showing Berenike II, wife of Ptolemy III. She died in 221BC. Surrounded by a shield of scales. Dated to early 2nd century BC

Detail of a sumptuous mosaic portraying Berenike Ii as a personification of Alexandria within borders of guilloches, perspective meanders and crenellations. Also signed by Sophilos. Dated to end of 3rd century BC

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

#MosaicMonday #Classics/AncientWorld This pebble mosaic fragment from an andron in #Sinope is dated to the 5th cent BC! The authors argue that the mosaics found there may be the earliest figural mosaics with mythological themes, predating those in Olynthos! acikerisim.uludag.edu.tr/server/api/c...

A floral rank motif within a wave band border

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

For #MosaicMonday #AncientBlueSky This white on black pebble mosaic from an andron in a private house shows Dionysos on a chariot drawn by two panthers and in a flowing chiton or chlamys led on by a naked male surrounded on all sides by a train of swirling, dancing maenads, some pulling small deer

From Olynthos late 5th or early 4th century BC. Obviously commissioned for the patron’s symposia to provide added playful spice to the ritual goings-on

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

Grey dusk shadows the sky From the light of the lake No sound is heard on high Its brume still lies awake

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

#MosaicMonday #ClassicsBlueSky #AncientBlueSky Found only last year in #Eretria on the island of Evia in an andron where symposia would have taken place. With two satyrs, cronies of Dionysos, one of whom is playing the aulos and the other presumably dancing

Dated mid 4th cent, composed in tetrachromy and located near its more famous House of Mosaics

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

For #MosaicMonday This sumptuous pebble mosaic, made up of flowers, leaves and spirals, a wonder of symmetrical beauty and precision from the oikos of the palace in Aigai (modern Vergina) has four females in each corner whose dresses morph into a palmette. Middle of 4th cent BC

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy (1755-1849) - what a name too ! - was the first in 1806 to write about #polychromy in ancient Greek art m. And what a colourful life he led! #ancientbluesky

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

Birds of a feather! From the Louvre (I’m assuming it’s still there😃) Provenance Daphne near Antakya beginning of 3rd cent AD #MosaicMonday

Yet another variation of the dove mosaic started by Sosos in Pergamon almost 400 years earlier. Lovely border of cubes in perspective

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

Something different for #MosaicMonday a micromosaic! A copy of the mosaic of doves mentioned by Pliny but copied from the mosaic found in Hadrian’s villa, itself a copy. This micromosaic made of tiny glass tesserae, 56mm, in 1779 by Giacomo Rafaelli in Rome 📷 Trustees of British Museum

Giacomo Rafaelli was apparently one of the founders in the late 18th century in Italy of a fashion in jewellery that made micromosaics from tiny tesserae of glass and enamel

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

Details of the late 4th cent BC pebble mosaic in #Pella from an andron showing exquisite use of skiagraphia and chiaroscuro perhaps of the figures of Alexander (l) and his friend Hephaistos and signed by Gnosis (Had the entire site to myself!) #MosaicMonday #Classics/AncientBlueSky

Perhaps the figure of Alexander striking the stag

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

#MosaicMonday Dionysus Delos Late 2nd/early Ist cent BC

Fragment of a mosaic in Delos Archeological Museum

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

For those who can read Swedish my article in Svenska Dagbladet about pebble mosaics and the floor as a spectacle #MosaicMonday

Development of pebble mosaics in the andron and their dynamic in the symposia rituals

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

#Classics/AncientWorld #mosaics #SvDKultur Min understreckare i dagens SvD om kiselstensmosaikens utveckling. Jag ville ha en bild av Kronhjortsjakten i Pella men Pressens bildmaterial saknade en sådan, tyvärr www.svd.se/a/939Kgl/de-...

svd.se

Jakt, hjältar och mystiska varelser

Från golv till väggar, och från privatbostäder till de bysantinska kyrkorna. Som konstart har mosaiken en lång, rik och varierad historia – som äntligen börjar få den uppmärksamhet den förtjänar.

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

#MosaicMonday Why was Sosos so famous acc to Pliny? He mentions two mosaics seemingly in the same room in Pergamon, both starting a mosaic meme as copies were made long after. None of his mosaics have survived (stolen as war booty as he was so celebrated?). This is a fragment of a mosaic ….1/

A fragment of a floral border In a mosaic with Erotes, birds and grasshoppers found in Palace V in Pergamon, early 2nd cent BCe

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

#MosaicMonday #AncientBlueSky An unusually early polychrome pebble mosaic of a female (deity?) from Epidamnos (Durrës, Albania). Second half 4th cent BC 📷 @albania360.com

The style and technique in this refined pebble mosaic ranks as highly as those from Pella and Vergina/Aigai

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

opus vermiculatum: It is the use of minute tesserae arranged mostly in a curvilinear way (ie wormlike) primarily to outline and model figures and allows the mosaicist to imitate and even emulate the finest lines of a painter’s brush by being able to condense colour and shading #MosaicMonday

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

For #MosaicMonday Four mosaics from Anatolia preceding Greek pebble mosaics

Assyrian 8th century BC from Arslsn Tash a palatial floor in chequerboard
📷 Wikipedia

Phrygian floor late 9th cent from Gordion, a town famous for its textiles
📷 Wikipedia

As close up of a megaron floor from Gordion Late 9th/early 8th cent
📷 Wikipedia

Earliest polychromatic mosaic Late Bronze Age ca 15th cent from the Hittite site Zippalanda, Uşakli Höyük
📷 @Uşakli Höyük Archaeological Project

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

The apotropaic sign of Tanit from the vestibule in the House of Dolphins owned by wealthy Phoenician on Delos. 📷 me #MosaicMonday

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

A humourous trompe l’oeil touch on this fragment made by this mosaicist who worked under Attalus Ii around 160BC in Pergamon- bit like a Post-it note! #MosaicMonday #Classics/AncientGreece

Hephaistiom made [this]
Pergamonmuseum Berlin

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

#MosaicMonday a Ptolemaic mosaic showing three winged Erotes hunting a stag, surrounded by a border of real and mythical animals, incl two animals that signify an Egyptian setting—the gazelle and hyena. Mixed pebble and tessera pieces. Early 3rd cent BC 📷 ℅ Archives du Centre d’Études Alexandrines

Again white figures on black background like a v similar pebble masterpiece from Pella that suggest the import of Macedonian mosaicists to Alexandria shortly after Ptomely took control of its new foundation. Other techniques like the use of lead strips and shading of the bodies point even further in that direction. Too the mosaic was found in an andron.
From the Graeco-Roman Museum n Alexandria

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Reposted by Nigel Moore

Led By Donkeys @ledbydonkeys.org · 17/03/2025

Thousands of people are ditching Tesla. Here’s one of them with a message you can see from space. Location: Black Rock Sands, Wales, UK Led By Donkeys is 100% funded by small donations.

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Nigel Moore @tessellae.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

For #MosaicMonday a question instead of a photo! Why were figural mosaics originally placed on floors? Any good answers out there?

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