Saving an Ancient Mosaic

Princeton's expeditions of the 1930s at the ancient city Antioch-on the-Orontes, located near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey, unearthed archaeological treasures of one of the most important cultural and political centers of the Roman Empire. Among the finds was a collection of mosaic pavements brought to Princeton, including one example that in 1951 made its way to the threshold of the Architecture Laboratory, where time continued to take its toll. Fortunately, the mosaic was rediscovered. In the summer of 2011 it was removed and taken to the Brooklyn conservation studio of Leslie Gat for restoration. The mosaic's removal, restoration, and re-installation in the lobby of the School of Architecture in March 2013 is documented in this video.

[@dougmc666]

Thank goodness that the School of Architecture saved this mosaic from themselves. It's a shame that the great brains at the Architecture Laboratory didn't know that the rebar would rust.

[@christianfrommuslim]

Exactly! And put in a place of high traffic and weather exposure!

[@pontikofarmako3634]

Bring them back to the original owners the Greeks.

[@christianfrommuslim]

or Turks?
In order for an artform to be famous it needs to be appreciated around the world. Therefore, it brings more glory to the Greeks for the world to admire them than to keep the millions of mosaics within their borders.

[@pontikofarmako3634]

​@@christianfrommuslim Or the millions can come to Greece to admire them. We have a great cousine too. Turks are colonisers to Anatolia and destructors of ancient and grecoroman history (The Walls of Constantinople are in decay, on ttop of the ruins of the hypodrome they have built modern concrete houses and important christian churches are brutally converted to mosques out of inferiority barbaric complex). The Hellenic Republic is the solely descendant of the Ancient Greek city states, the Macedonian Empire, the Diadoxoi States, the Eastern Roman Empire, the Empire of Trapezounta and Nikaia and the Despotate of Epirus.

[@scarlet6719]

bring them back to me

[@MiaN3420]

How do you destroy a mosaic, hundreds of years old, by putting concrete over it? Not a great advertisement for your school of archeology