(You can click on areas of this image to see more
detail)Colchester is Britain's oldest recorded town, and was
once the Roman capital of Britain. Tacitus
mentions "Camoludunum" in his annals.
Not
surprisingly, Colchester is full of Roman antiquities.
In 1865 this Roman mosaic was found on North Hill (now
on display in Colchester
Castle):
(You can click on areas of this image to see more
detail)
We decided to build a replica of this mosaic. This is the finished product:
The mosaic was constructed using the so-called Indirect
Method, i.e. it was glued face-down on brown paper.
This is
what the mosaic looked like in September 2002:
Here are some pictures taken during the project.
On 8th March 2002 the children of Friar's Grove Junior School got involved. (Needless to say the mosaic went back to school once it was finished!)
Our kitchen looked like this before:
The tilers started with the rest of the kitchen, and left a space for the mosaic. In the center of the mosaic, a space was reserved for some original Roman tesserae to be inserted later on.
Eventually everything was ready for laying the mosaic - a tense moment!
Done! And the beauty of the mosaic was revealed step by step as the backing paper was peeled off.
Laid
by D.G. Black and Son of Colchester.
Final
touches: fitting Roman tesserae from the 1st and 2nd
century into the middle
2000
years later Roman mosaics are still used in Colcestrian kitchens!
Colchester Evening Gazette 26.3.03
This project was supported by Colchester Castle, the Colchester
Archaeological Trust and the Archeaological Services of Suffolk
County Council.
Thank You to all!
Last modified
4.4.2003
Maintained by Ulrich
Nehmzow.