The Lod Mosaic: The Discovery of an Ancient Roman Mosaic

Read more about the Roman Mosaic here: http://www.metmuseum.org/now-at-the-met/features/2010/09/23/the-roman-mosaic-from-lod,-israel.aspx

This four-minute video produced by the Metropolitan Museum from footage provided by the Israel Antiquities Authority documents the initial discovery of the Lod mosaic in 1996 and its lifting and conservation in 2009. The work in 2009 produced some dramatic results that shed light on the way the mosaic was laid some seventeen hundred years ago.

Produced by Christopher Noey
Edited by Kate Farrell
Animation by Paul Caro
Production Assistant - Sarah Cowan
Audio Post-Production - David Raymond
Scholarly Consultant - Christopher Lightfoot

Special Thanks:
Miriam Avissar
Jacob Fisch
Carlos Picón
Jacques Neguer

All photographs and video footage courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

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Closed Caption:

I was sent in 1996 to undertake a simple trial excavation,
because the municipality of Lod wanted to widen the street.
The first thing I found was a white corner of a mosaic floor.
Then we found a tail of a tiger, and we saw immediately that it was of a marvelous quality.
After two months, I had the whole mosaic floor.
We are working on the conservation of the Lod mosaic.
At the beginning, we didn’t want to move the mosaic from this place,
but when we decided to build a museum there and to excavate more,
it was wiser to take out the mosaic to have the space to dig and to build properly.
In this time we are proceeding to the lifting of the mosaic.
Now, first of all comes the careful cleaning.
Second is the very precise documentation and the decision of how to cut the mosaic without disturbing the composition,
because the lifting is a very tricky process and is a key moment in the conservation.
Not many mosaics have this quality and this level of integrity, and the mosaic has not been touched.
In this moment we are proceeding with the gluing of the mosaic with cotton fabric.
After that comes the cutting of the mosaic from the bedding.
We are dividing the mosaic into the minimum possible fragments.
The detachment is a very important part of the conservation process and needs a lot of professional skills, experience, and power.
From this moment depends everything: the future conservation and the future success of the restoration.
We have in our hands all the history of building of this mosaic, and we discovered step by step how the mosaic was done, who did the mosaic.
We have the footprints of the people walking on the mosaic to lay on the tessera.
With these footprints, we have the connection in time between the people working on this mosaic
and us working again to conserve the mosaic and to transfer the mosaic in the future.
The mosaic will be transferred to wooden platforms to transport the fragments to our laboratories in Jerusalem
for further conservation and construction of new supports.
The conservation process will take two years,
and the building of the museum a little bit more.
The first place to display the mosaic will be the Metropolitan Museum in New York.