Israeli Mosaics [antikvár]

T I he mosaics illustrated in this book have as an historical _ M setting the flowering of the Holy Land in the period of Byzantine rule. From the time of the destruction of the Jewish Temple in the year 70 after Christ until the early fourth century the Roman province of Palaestina, of which modern Israel comprises a large part, existed in relative obscurity. Though there had been a temporary upswing under the Antonine and Severan emperors, a large-scale economic and cultural revival of the country began with the official recognition of Christianity under Constantine the Great (306-37). The imperial government, established in its new capital on the Bosphorus, sponsored the erection of sumptuous buildings on the major sites associated with the life of Christ. The Holy Places soon began to attract pilgrims from far and wide. The fifth and sixth centuries— the period to which nearly all the mosaics here reproduced belong—were a time of peace and prosperity. The Persian invasion of the early seventh century and the subsequent conquest of the country by the Arabs put an end to this era. The mosaicists' art, however, still flourished under the early Ummaiyyad caliphs, who, vying with their Byzantine opponents, adopted the medium for their own buildings. The adornment of floors with richly patterned mosaics— and all ancient mosaics which have survived in Israel are pavements—was part of the common artistic heritage of the Graeco-Roman world. The soil of every country that was once part of the Roman Empire has yielded examples. No other pictorial medium offers a material so evenly and widely distributed in time and space to the student of the history of art in the Roman and early Byzantine period;