Ancient CyprusAncient Cyprus

Chapter · 2019

The Floor and Wall Mosaics of Salamis

M. Achilleos

In Salamis of Cyprus: History and Archaeology from the Earliest Times to Late Antiquity, 678-692. Waxmann

A chapter on the floor and wall mosaics of Salamis, their settings and mythological subjects, with parallels at Nea Paphos, Palaepaphos, Antioch and other sites.

Achilleos treats first the Orpheus floor mosaic from an exedra at the entrance to the small baths of a house near the gymnasium, known today from photographs and earlier descriptions, and it has been destroyed. She then turns to the wall mosaics of the gymnasium baths, whose surviving fragments sit in niches of the caldarium and of the north and south sudatoria, and describes their figures, framing and settings.

The scenes are mythological, and she sets them within the prevalence of mythological subjects in Cypriot mosaics, comparing them with mosaics at Nea Paphos, Palaepaphos, Antioch and other sites farther east. The south sudatorium holds the best-known figural fragments, among them a Leda and the Swan scene. For the main mosaic of that room she presents four proposed readings, notes the problems that some of them raise, and leaves its subject unresolved (pp. 684–690). Other gymnasium mosaics may have been destroyed in the Early Christian period.

Her chapter reports the dating of Vassos Karageorghis, who placed the Salamis mosaics towards the end of the 3rd century CE and used dislodged stone blocks attributed to 4th-century CE earthquakes as a chronological guide. For comparison she gives dates for mosaics elsewhere, among them the House of Aion mosaic at Nea Paphos, which a coin dates to the second quarter of the 4th century.

What it records

  • Max Ohnefalsch-Richter found the Salamis floor mosaic in 1882, in excavations undertaken for the British Museum.p. 678
  • The floor mosaic from the house near the gymnasium had been destroyed by the time Achilleos wrote.p. 678
  • The excavations of the gymnasium baths ran from 1952 to 1974, and Vassos Karageorghis discovered the mosaics in 1964–66.p. 680
  • The wall mosaics from the gymnasium baths are the only known wall mosaics on Cyprus, Achilleos states.p. 680
  • Vassos Karageorghis dated the Salamis mosaics towards the end of the 3rd century CE.p. 689
  • Four interpretations have been offered for the south sudatorium mosaic: the slaying of the Niobids, Hylas and the Nymphs, an Amazonomachy, or the Rape of Ganymede.p. 690

Where to read

  • The destroyed floor mosaic and its documentationpp. 678–680
  • Wall mosaics and their interpretation in the gymnasium bathspp. 681–686
  • Leda and the Swan, parallels and datingpp. 686–690

Objects published here

5
  • Orpheus and the Beasts floor mosaic, now destroyed, Exedra at the entrance of the small baths of a house near the gymnasium, Fig. 1 (p. 678)
  • Bust within a medallion and acanthus tendrils, Niche of the caldarium in the gymnasium baths, Figs. 6,B and 7 (p. 681)
  • Mosaic fragment with garland and landscape, Niche in the north sudatorium of the gymnasium baths, Figs. 6,C and 8 (p. 683)
  • Figural mosaic fragment with three figures, shield and quiver, Central niche of the south wall of the south sudatorium, Figs. 6,D and 9 (p. 683)
  • Leda and the Swan mosaic fragment, Arch in the south wall of the south sudatorium, Figs. 6,E and 10a–b (p. 686)

People, places and institutions

People

Places

  • Salamissource of the floor and wall mosaics
  • Nea Paphossource of comparative mosaics
  • House of Orpheussetting of the Nea Paphos Orpheus mosaic
  • Palaepaphossource of a Leda mosaic
  • House of Aionsource of a Leda mosaic
  • Antiochsource of comparative river-god mosaics

Also named: Demetrios Michaelides, Sepphoris, Tarsus, Shahba-Philippopolis, Beyrouth, Ganymede.

Extent pp. 678–692, figs 1–14, plan (fig. 6); bibliography

RomanLate AntiqueIconographyArchitectureChronology and Dating

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