Application Procedures of Mosaics and the Division of Production Work: Examples from Madaba, Beth Alpha and Antioch

The paper presents a new approach towards the study of production of ancient mosaics. Application procedures and recurring inlay-patterns are applied as the main tool for understanding the organization of the ancient mosaic workshop. Three criteria will be presented as designating an application procedure: order of production, design and inlay patterns. The paper focuses on the first criterium, the order of production, and presents two applications of this criterium: illusion of overlapping and internal division. It further illustrates the application of the method on three case studies: the church of Lot and Procopius in Jordan, the synagogue at Beth Alpha in Israel and the Worchester Hunt mosaic from Daphne, Antioch. The paper shows how the method can be applied in order to artistically identify the hands that participated in the production. These identifications shed a new light upon understanding the organisation of the ancient mosaic workshop.

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