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Rural activities and pastoral scenes, episodes of
daily life, vintage, harvesting, animal chase, and
hunting appear as part of the repertoire of inhabited
vine and acanthus scrolls found in religious
and secular contexts, and on other designs on
mosaic pavements of the early Byzantine period
in the provinces of Palaestina and Arabia (Tables
VI-2, VII-1-2).
These popular vintage and hunting events,
which include human activities, are absent from
synagogue pavements. Only a few scenes of
animal combat and chase appear in the synagogue
context, in medallions of the vine rinceau at the
Gaza synagogue aisle mosaic and in the border
mosaic of Beth She"an synagogue (figs. VI-1,10).
The only figural themes on synagogue pavements
are rendered in biblical scenes and the zodiac
designs.
Rural scenes on mosaic compositions involving
human figures are usually recurrent episodes
depicted in a similar manner and posture often
in scenes of vintage, animal chase and combat,
hunting, and events of everyday life.
Vintage-arable scenes incorporate various
activities of vine harvesting: figures gathering
and carrying grapes, a donkey loaded with baskets
transporting the harvest, treading the grapes,
pressing in the vine press, and a flute player
accompanying the harvesting.
Chase and hunting scenes show animals in pursuit,
chase, hunting, and combat; scenes of big
game hunting include hunters on foot or mounted,
armed with spear and shield, combating or confronting
beasts; archers hunting beasts; the taming
of animals, animals presented for public display,
fowling, and bird catching. Pastoral and everyday
scenes show shepherds and their flock, men and
women in diverse settings, and fishing.
A.Vintage, Arable Scenes
Vintage scenes on the mosaic pavements appear
in compositions of vine and acanthus inhabited
scrolls describing a complete cycle of the grape
iconographic aspects of rural life 149
CHAPTER SEVEN
ICONOGRAPHIC ASPECTS OF RURAL LIFE
harvest (Saller and Bagatti 1949: 92; Roussin 1985:
236-247; Piccirillo 1989: 326-327; 1993: 40-41;
Merrony 1998: 448-449, 467-468, 470-474).
The vintage scenes are usually random with
no sequence, appearing haphazardly in various
medallions of the design, while other medallions
in the same mosaic might include hunting or
everyday life episodes; yet in some mosaics the
scenes are composed in linked medallions.
These vintage scenes seem particularly suited to
inhabit a vine scrolls carpet though they are portrayed
on some inhabited acanthus scroll mosaics
too; all the typical themes appear on Christian
sacred mosaics (in church and chapel); none of
these scenes appear on synagogue pavements
except for a hare eating grapes seen on the mosaic
border at the Beth She"an small synagogue.
The characteristic features of the arable scenes
are the following (Table VII-1, pls. VII.1-6):
• The vintager gathering the grapes
• A porter carrying the basket of grapes
• A donkey laden with baskets transporting
the grapes from the vineyard to the press
• Treading the grapes, pressing in the wine
press
• The flute player
• A hare or fox eating grapes
The Vintager
The vintager portrayed in the inhabited vine medallion
is frequently shown in the same pose: turning
to his left, barefoot, wearing a short sleeveless
tunic decorated with two orbiculi (discs); in his right
hand he holds a knife with a curved blade with
which he cuts the cluster off the vine (pl. VII.1).
In some cases the cluster is dropped into a full
basket next to the vintager.
The vintager (pl. VII.1) appears twice in
medallions of the inhabited vine scrolls mosaic
in Room L (pl. VII.1a) (Fitzgerald 1939, pl. XVII,
figs. 1, 2), and is partly destroyed in the mosaic
chapel of Sede Nahum (pl. VII.1b) (Zori 1962:
185, pl. XXV, 3-5). Vintagers appear in inhabited
vine medallions in several 6th-century mosaics