An intricate mosaic with a kaleidoscopic variety of patterns, colors and figures, one of them the personification of a lake wearing crab claw hairclips, has been unearthed in the city of Iznik, Turkey. The style of the mosaic and ceramics and coins found in the excavation layer date it to the 3rd century.
The mosaic was first spotted 11 years ago during sewer construction. Workers uncovered a small piece of a face composed of colorful tiles, but they covered it up for its protection and stopped construction in the area. Because the mosaic extended under the road and private property, a decade of legal entanglements over expropriation procedures and permits ensued, until in 2024 the İznik Museum Directorate finally returned to the find site and began a full-scale excavation of the expropriated area.
The year’s excavation uncovered the entire mosaic floor 50 square meters (538 square feet) within the designation area. The team also unearthed the lower walls and the remains of the upper layers of the ancient building. The walls had once been covered with frescoes and the floors inlaid with marble, but most of them were damaged over the centuries or taken and reused.
The mosaic, on the other hand, is virtually intact. It is divided into three main panels, underlined by a white border with red pomegranate and ivy leaves. Two pairs of sandals point in different directions between the pomegranate row and the wall.
The left panel is centered around a female figure with a basket of agricultural produce (pomegranates, grapes, wheat) with two small figures reclining above each shoulder. She is being represented as a goddess of the harvest, and the ΓΗ label above her head indicates she’s the goddess of the Earth, Gaia. There are abbreviated labels above the small figures too, but they have not yet been fully deciphered.
She is set in an octagonal panel, and each side of it has a square with a different geometric pattern, including guilloche knots, meanders, checkerboards, harlequin, 3D cubes, wheels and more. Between the square panels are triangular and diamond shaped ones, filling in the space and sometimes creating a cubed effect.
The central panel contains five more octagons with female figures, all bounded by guilloche knots.
[Archaeologist Yusuf Kahveci] highlighted the central figure: “We can read the name Askania beside the central figure. This was the Roman-era name of Lake Iznik. The mosaic depicts the lake.”
“The figure is associated with water, with hair rendered in algae-like detail, a crown made of crab claws and waves illustrated around her neck. In other words, Lake Iznik is personified as an ancient woman,” he added.
Personified bodies of water were popular in Greco-Roman art, but this example is unusual for referring specifically to a local lake and for the unusual iconography of crab claws as hairclips.
The third section of the mosaic is a patchwork of complex geometric patterns in square, diamond and triangular panels.
So far, almost 3800 square feet of this Roman-era building have been revealed, but archaeologists believe that more of the mosaic floor survives beyond the currently exposed borders. The sandals placed near a threshold suggests it is an entrance to a grand interior space that was built over by modern streets and buildings.
‘GA(ia)’ seems obvious. Those “crab claw hairclips” speak for themselves, and ‘Askania’ is clearly readable for Lake Iznik. The town (İznik), however, was referred to as Νίκαια or Nicaea.
The topic of ‘harvest’ is written allover the panel, and the four ladies around ‘Askania’ also have inscriptions, which unfortunately are a bit harder to decipher.
The bottom left one (with the cereals in her hair) reads something like… τροπή θερινή, i.e. maybe the four seasons, and here particularly the ‘turn’ to summer (θερίνεος/ therineos=summer).
Turning back to ‘GA(ia)’, the ‘PAI’ and the ‘KAR’ may stand for offspring and death, Ashes to ashes and earth back to ‘GA(ia)’ (κεραΐζω…).
μετοπωρινός = autumnal
i.e. “τροπή μετοπωριή”, the bottom right hand one is obviously “Autumn”.
…“τροπή μετοπωρινή”, of course (…i.e. with ‘ν’), for “autumn”.
To conclude, χειμών = Winter – i.e. In the upper right hand corner, we seem to read “τροπή χειμε(ρ)νή”, while notably the inscription for ‘Spring’ seems to have gone entirely. …However…
For ‘spring’, there seem to be two expressions, i.e. ἔαρ and πηγή (of which the latter is probably rather watery). Hence, I suggest “τροπή ἔαρή” for the upper left hand girl with the red 🍎️
Folks, a possibly better explanation (better than the one I gave above for ‘KAR’) might be κάρπιμος/ KAR(pimos) = fruit-bearing, fruitful.
Allegedly (i.e. according to an inscription on the Athens acropolis), Gaia had been –in some constellations– venerated as ‘Gaia Karpophoros’, i.e. the “fruit-bearing”, which presumably would give ‘PAI’ the “child-bearing” aspect of the whole story.
— A fruitful Sunday to Y’all!
…if the ΠΑΙ/”PAI” would rather be “POI”/ΠΟΙ, there is the verb ποιέω, poieo = “I make/ produ𝝇e”, or ‘Poiea’, in which case the “small figures above each shoulder”, particularly the right one, would indicate that Gaia first “produces” and then is harvesting/ “bears fruit”.
Thank you, Frank. It’s great that a scholar has taken the time and made the effort to interpret this lovely ancient work of art for the rest of us.
No doubt that ΚΑΡ-ΠΟΙ (kar-poi) in Greek is the nomin. plural of ΚΑΡ-ΠΟΣ (nomin. singular): Καρπός-Καρποί. So ΓΗ is simply personified (not to be confused with goddess Gaea in this mosaic). As for the rest I fully agree with the remaining (4 out of 5) readable inscriptions
ACKANIA (personified Lake (today Iznik lake in Turkey).
ΤΡΟΠΗ ΘΕΡΙΝΗ (=Summer, 21/6 summer solstice).
TΡΟΠΗ ΜΕΤΟΠΩΡΙΝΗ (=Autumn).
ΤΡΟΠΗ ΧΕΙΜΕΡΙΝΗ (=Winter).
“Spring turn” is missing/desptroyed during excavation but can be easily guessed ΤΡΟΠΗ ΕΑΡΙΝΗ. The adjective coming from έαρ> εαρινός, εαρινή, εαρινόν.
In fact, the depicted two children on earth’s two shoulders is an Ecology message that also humans are mother Earth’s fruits, as preached by philosopher Theophrastus of Eresos, Aristotle’s successor as Lyceum Director, after A. died. I shall come back on how I persomally interprete/decifer the whole mosaic. Thank you!