Mosaic Masterpieces - Treasures of Roman North Africa

Triton in his Sea Chariot

For a writer of historical fiction, and for an historian, the museum is the place to go for research.

Not only can you learn a lot about people and places, you can also come face to face with the possessions of the people and places about which you are writing. You can interact with the items that decorated and served long-ago worlds – Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Carthage and Rome etc. etc.

In a museum, culture is frozen in time as a sort of gift to future generations, a window to peer through and better understand those who went before us.

I’ve been to a lot of museums in my travels, large and small, great and not-so-great. But there was

Hall of the old Bardo Museum

always something to be learned, something to take away with me that I could use in my writing.

This post, I wanted to touch on a particularly wonderful museum that I visited in Tunisia – The Bardo Museum in Tunis.

When I went to Tunisia to do research for Children of Apollo and Killing the Hydra, visiting Punic and Roman sites on the fringes of the Sahara was one of the biggest thrills of my travels.

When our 4x4 left the desert behind, I was disappointed to be back in the city. Tunis held none of the allure of the southern desert or the fertile green hills of central Tunisia. There were no ruined temples or amphitheatres, no mosaics or ancient streets as open to the sky, unsuffocated by modernity.

Ulysses on his Voyage

We pulled up outside a rather unassuming building and were told this was the ‘famous’ Bardo Museum. I probably rolled my eyes, remembered swaying palms and Saharan sand beneath my feet. I dreaded the dark building before me after so much perceived freedom.

I was so wrong. When we entered the Bardo, my eyes fell upon some of the most magnificent artistic creations I have ever seen.

The walls and floors were absolutely covered with myriad mosaics of such colour, such intricacy – I thought the images would jump right out at me.

And they were tucked away in this little museum that, up until that point, I had never heard mentioned

The 'Days' of the Week

by anyone at university or elsewhere.

I decided this week to look back over some of the photos I took at the museum and enjoyed revisiting those moments when I locked eyes with a tesseraed Triton or the striking statue of a Roman woman.

When I looked at the website for the Bardo Museum, I found that they have moved to a completely new, more spacious building. Here is the link where you can also take a virtual tour of the new Bardo.

The new museum is stunning but for me the mosaics still take centre stage.

A Hunting Scene (left) and
the Nine Muses (right)

What is amazing about these creations is that they were what decorated the homes of the people who inhabited the period about which I was writing.

The visual that these mosaics provided for me and my written world was priceless.

Suddenly, my characters’ homes no longer contained shabby dirt or terra cotta floors, or even plain marble. Triclinii, peristylii and atrii came to life with the mythological and natural scenes that decorated Roman homes.

But these mosaics at the Bardo, and elsewhere, do not only depict the religious or fanciful aspects of belief.

A Gladiator and a Lion in the Arena

More importantly to our knowledge, they depict the everyday activities of people ages ago. We see people hunting, fishing, tilling and bringing in the harvest. We see images of the food they ate, the sports they watched and the heroes they worshiped.

These mosaics tell us so much about a world that would otherwise be lost to us. Thanks to these masterpieces, we know more about the buildings they decorated and the importance placed upon particular rooms within private homes, public and religious spaces.

Champion Chariot Horses

When I stepped out of the Bardo Museum into the setting sunlight on a Tunis street, I felt as though I had been a guest at sumptuous banquet in someone’s home, far off on the edge of the Empire. This was not some flee-infested frontier region. No.

The Roman provinces of Africa Proconsularis and Numidia yielded not only the oil, grain and garum upon which the Empire depended, but also artistic treasures that have left a mark on time.

At the Bardo Museum, you can walk among these treasured mosaics with many silent, sentinel statues as your fellow guests.

If you ever get the chance to visit this place, do so. You will not regret it, and the memory of what you see will linger with you for years to come. 

Gallery Statue

Floor to Ceiling Displays

The Poet Virgil

Picture Postcard #8 - Punic Ghosts

I have travelled over sea and sand to this ancient place.

My footsteps upon this cursed ground, these sad streets, are heavy,

For I walk in ancient Carthage.

Not the brilliant white ruins of antiquity for this place.

No.

Here, every street and stone, root and rock, weep for the past.

I am choked as I walk, heavy of heart for all the whispers about me.

From the salt-sown earth about the Bursa Hill,

The men, women and children of Carthage scream, and wail, and cry.

For all time.

 “Carthago delenda est” said the Roman.

And so it came to pass.

As I walk the streets, burned by the flames of ages past,

An incessant whispering of ghosts in my ears,

The bloody words resonate with the tramp of legionary hobnails.

“Carthago delenda est” – Carthage must be destroyed.

I walk among Roman ruins as well, for time has no favourites.

Build upon the ruins of the fallen they might,

But Rome too is dust in Carthage.

The walls and pillars of the Caesars crumble and decay, the mosaics fade.

Punic and Roman voices are caged together here…forever.

As the wind whips dust among the ruins,

And the sea laps the shore,

I weep for the forgotten people of this place,

Of Carthage.

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If you interested in Carthage, there is a great trilogy by author Ross Leckie that is worth checking out. 

Recently, I also enjoyed watching the documentary Carthage - The Roman Holocaust. I'm not sure about some of the theories in this documentary but it does make a good case and takes the viewer to some spectacular locales. Well worth an hour and a half of your time. I was inspired to look through some of my old photos of Tunisia after watching this documentary and was thus inspired write this picture postcard.

Thanks for reading!

Wine-Dark Sea Battles

 Today I read about the discovery of what experts believe is a Carthaginian warship ram discovered off of Sicily that is thought to date to a sea battle of 241 B.C. between the rising Roman Republic and Punic Carthage. This was the First Punic War which ended with a treaty in 241 B.C. Here is a photo of the bronze ram that was found and which is a remnant of the last great naval battle of that war:

For a writer, sea battles can provide a very different setting for engaging enemies. The sights, smells, sounds and weapons are not always those that will paint a picture of battle on land. A good example of a small scale, ancient sea battle can be found in Gillian Bradshaw’s historical novel set in ancient Greece entitled The Sun’s Bride. This book has some great sequences and while they are not the large scale battles that no doubt marked the First Punic War, they will give a good idea of what was involved.

A good resource for research on ancient war ships if you are interested is the Trireme Trust (www.triremetrust.org.uk/). In 1987 this group built a full scale, working trireme and carried out numerous experiments to prove or disprove various theories related to the most common and deadliest of ancient war ships, the trireme. The ship itself, known as the Olympias, has been in movies and events in both Britain and Greece. In the summer of 2012, the trireme will be in New York City harbour as part of the tall ships exhibition and will be accompanied by an exhibition on Athenian maritime history at the South Street Seaport Museum (http://www.trireme.org/).

So, if you want to add a little salt-sea flair to your writing, a battle scene with a twist, get your sea legs on and get your men on board ship. If your legionaries are not comfortable at sea, remember the Roman invention of the corvus, the spiked boarding plank that the Romans invented during the First Punic War that allowed infantry to fight as though they were on land when at sea. Things were likely just as bloody. If you like movies, check out The Odyssey with Armand Assante and Greta Scacchi or Jason and the Argonauts with Jason London, Natasha Henstridge and Derek Jacobi. Both of these are great fun to watch. Just remember to offer up something to Poseidon or you could find yourself adrift.



Ancient Greek Trireme