One of the most extraordinary archaeological finds of recent years was the excavation of a Roman villa in Rutland, England. In 20202 the site revealed a huge mosaic depicting three scenes from the Trojan War.
At the time, I wrote an extended post about this Roman Trojan War mosaic. The mosaic depicts one of my favorite parts of Homer’s Iliad, the fight between Achilles and Hector and Priam’s ransom of his son’s body from Achilles. My post included Alexander Pope’s translation of the lines from the Iliad describing that heart-wrenching encounter between Priam and Achilles.
Getting a detailed look at the Roman Trojan War Mosaic
I’ll share another article about this mosaic because the supervising archaeologist wrote a well written and interesting summary. Best of all, he made a 3 minute video that shows the fully exposed mosaic in excellent detail while discussing what each panel depicts and what questions are posed to the archaeologists by the elements in the design. If you’re a fan of mosaics, the Iliad, or archaeology and history in general, this is a lovely video. The article is on LiveScience “How we found Britain’s only known Roman mosaic of the Trojan War.”
By the way, at the top of this post, I put Rubens’ version of the battle between Achilles and Hector. Amazing how differently artists over the centuries imagine scenes (wiki).