Nigel Moore
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tessellae.bsky.social
Nigel Moore
@tessellae.bsky.social
38 followers 36 following 150 posts
Fascinated by how Neolithic man became a social being and by the exquisite beauty of ancient mosaics, after 35 years in psychiatry. Alter ego @ostreology
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tessellae.bsky.social
#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
November 30, 2025 at 11:36 PM
tessellae.bsky.social
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
Photo www.europeana.eu Photo www.aigai.gr Photo www.aigai.gr
November 10, 2025 at 4:31 PM
tessellae.bsky.social
Brunnsviken
October 30, 2025 at 11:32 PM
tessellae.bsky.social
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
📷 from Wikipedia
October 21, 2025 at 4:52 PM
tessellae.bsky.social
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
October 20, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Reposted by Nigel Moore
archaeologs.com
First Human-Faced Pillar Discovered at Karahantepe

#archaeology #karahantepe #tastepeler #gobeklitepe #news #neolithic #turkiye

www.archaeologs.com/n/first-huma...
First Human-Faced Pillar Discovered at Karahantepe - Archaeologs
Recent archaeological excavations at Karahantepe have brought to light a remarkable find from the depths of prehistory: a T-shaped pillar bearing the depiction of a human face. This discovery reshapes...
www.archaeologs.com
October 6, 2025 at 10:14 AM
tessellae.bsky.social
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
September 22, 2025 at 8:20 AM
tessellae.bsky.social
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 Hephaistos?
September 8, 2025 at 9:26 AM
tessellae.bsky.social
#MosaicMonday
Dionysus
Delos
Late 2nd/early Ist cent BC
Fragment of a mosaic in Delos Archeological Museum
September 1, 2025 at 11:52 AM
tessellae.bsky.social
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
July 28, 2025 at 4:20 PM
tessellae.bsky.social
#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-...
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.
www.svd.se
July 25, 2025 at 10:48 AM
tessellae.bsky.social
#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
July 14, 2025 at 5:09 PM
tessellae.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Whole-genome ancestry of an Old Kingdom Egyptian - Nature
Whole-genome sequencing of an ancient male Egyptian revealed a mixture of North African Neolithic and eastern Fertile Crescent ancestry, suggesting human migration between Egypt and Mesopotamia by the...
www.nature.com
July 2, 2025 at 3:33 PM
tessellae.bsky.social
#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
June 23, 2025 at 4:02 PM
tessellae.bsky.social
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
June 9, 2025 at 8:09 PM
tessellae.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
#AncientBlueSky
Inside the quest to digitally unroll ancient scrolls burnt by Vesuvius
Mission to decipher Herculaneum scrolls using high-resolution scanning and artificial intelligence scales up rapidly.
www.nature.com
April 30, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Reposted by Nigel Moore
rogueclassicist.bsky.social
(7) Scanning Herculaneum Scrolls at Scale
scrollprize.substack.com/p/scanning-h...
Scanning Herculaneum Scrolls at Scale
This week, we quadrupled the library of scanned scrolls from Herculaneum
scrollprize.substack.com
April 27, 2025 at 6:54 PM
tessellae.bsky.social
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
April 21, 2025 at 12:26 AM
tessellae.bsky.social
The apotropaic sign of Tanit from the vestibule in the House of Dolphins owned by wealthy Phoenician on Delos.
📷 me
#MosaicMonday
Late 2nd or early 1st cent BC
April 14, 2025 at 5:42 PM
tessellae.bsky.social
artsandculture.google.com/story/stroll...
#Classics/AncientWorld
#MosaicMonday
#AncuentBlueSky
Stroll Through the Villa of the Birds - Google Arts & Culture
Take a tour of an ancient Roman villa in Egypt.
artsandculture.google.com
April 7, 2025 at 10:19 PM
tessellae.bsky.social
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
March 30, 2025 at 10:39 PM
tessellae.bsky.social
#Classics/AncientWorld

www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...
Ancient Greeks and Romans perfumed their statues, study says
The statues would have smelled sweet, with scents from roses, honey, olive oil and other fragrances.
www.washingtonpost.com
March 29, 2025 at 3:57 PM
tessellae.bsky.social
#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
March 23, 2025 at 11:35 PM
Reposted by Nigel Moore
ledbydonkeys.org
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.
March 17, 2025 at 6:15 PM
tessellae.bsky.social
For #MosaicMonday a question instead of a photo!
Why were figural mosaics originally placed on floors? Any good answers out there?
March 17, 2025 at 2:09 PM