The Marine Scene in the Lod Mosaics

Abstract

The Lod mosaic, discovered in the city bearing that name in Israel, was laid in a luxurious villa urbana in the late 3rd or early 4th century AD. It contains inter alia a nautical scene presented as a floor carpet in the form of a pond. The scene includes sea life and two ships. One is sailing freely while the other, facing the opposite direction, is becalmed and perhaps in distress. The scene, in that place and time, symbolized the penetration into this country of the sea-oriented Greco-Roman culture. The pond containing the sea life and the vessels conveyed the idea of the sea, full of life, as a representation of the world organized by its creator. The scene details of the sea symbolize the truism “big fish eat little fish,” which also appears in contemporary literature. The vessels symbolize life as a sea voyage, also reflected in contemporary sources. The two ships affected contrarily by the same wind suggest the metaphor that a benefit divinely granted to one may be undesirable to another, and that it is impossible to appease everyone all the time. Such ships could also present additional ship associated symbolic concepts. To the modern observer the pond and its contents look as if they were purposefully and successfully designed to fit most cultural backgrounds of contemporary viewers, be they Jews, Christians, Samaritans or pagans.