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names, wearing contemporary costumes, and representing
amphitheatre venatores are set around the
four sides of a square (fig. VII.7).
The scenes of hunters on foot spearing beasts
are arranged in confronting pairs with limited
landscape. Beasts assaulting animals are around
the central medallion. Dunbabin (1999: 181)
concludes, ‘the overall effect, however, is one of
decorative schematization, with little reference
to the natural form’.
The Worcester Hunt is similar in design, with
hunters mounted and on foot arranged among
four trees, and in the centre a standing figure is
surrounded by various animals (fig. VII-8). Some
of the hunting episodes are similar to those on the
Megalopsychia Hunt mosaic and comparable to
many of the scenes on the Palestinian and Arabian
mosaics described above.
The Apamea Hunt has a different composition.
The scenes are arranged in five registers
portraying hunters on foot and horseback battling
beasts, as well as beasts attacking animals.
The figures are classical with inflated poses to
convey movement; the composition shows both
natural form and decorative representation. The
mosaic is unique, though to some degree comparable
to some of the scenes on the mosaic of
the Great Palace of the Byzantine Emperors at
Constantinople.
Presentation of Animals for Public Display
Scenes of transportation of beasts for public display
were a prominent element in the repertoire
of mosaics in the Roman period. Some 6th-century
Levantine examples were possibly inspired
by earlier Roman models such as the 4th-century
Sicilian villa of Piazza Armerina. There the Great
Hunt scene is an example of the capture of animals
for display in the imperial circus by the venatores.
It apparently reflected the patron’s activities
and showed off his wealth (Merrony 1998: 455).
The scene renders a figure leading various animals
for display (Table VII-3). The emphasis in
these colourful scenes is on ethnic figures (perhaps
African or Indian) leading exotic animals
(pl. VII.15).
On the inhabited vine scrolls pavement at the
Be#er Shem#a church a scene of a man leading an
elephant with a black rider wearing a striped trousers
and necklace is in the two left-hand medallions
in the row 9; a black man wearing similar
striped trousers and necklace, leading a giraffe, is
chapter seven
the scene in two right-hand medallions in the row
(Gazit and Lender 1993: 276, pl. XXIe). A black
man stripped to the waist, wearing a striped skirttrousers
and a feathered head-dress, and leading a
giraffe is the scene in a medallion on the inhabited
scroll mosaic at Room L of the Monastery at Beth
She"an (Fitzgerald 1939: 9, pl. XVI).
In mosaics discovered in Jordan several scenes
of animals appear. The bottom row of the mosaic
pavement of the Old Diakonikon Bapistery on
Mt. Nebo shows two figures: a black figure wearing
only a striped skirt leads an ostrich; the other
figure in Eastern dress leads a zebra and a giraffe
(pl. VII.15c) (Piccirillo 1993: 146, figs. 166, 170,
171, 182: the giraffe was wrongly identified as a
camel).
A figure leading a similar giraffe appears in
the second register of the first panel at al-Khadir
church at Madaba; a hunter with a trident in his
right hand pulling a lion by a cord is seen in the
fourth register (Lux 1967: 170, Taf.32B; 1993:
129-130, fig. 142). A man with a moustache holds
a tamed bear on a rope in two medallions of the
inhabited vine scrolls border of the Church of the
Rivers at Umm al-Rasas (Piccirillo 1993: 234,
241, fig. 389).
The artist in these examples possibly meant
to render a giraffe, although it looks like a camel
with a hump and spots on its body and horns on
its head like the giraffes at the Beth She"an monastery
Hall A and Room L (pl. XII.4e,f). A giraffe
corresponds well with the other exotic animals led
by the figures; by contrast, the camels in following
examples carry merchandise.
Some of the same exotic animals appear on
inhabited vine scrolls pavements in Gaza and
the south-west Negev without leading figures
(pl. XII.4). At the Gaza synagogue a pair of
giraffes and a zebra are seen in the medallions of
row 6; the giraffes are in a natural pose with their
bodies covered in lattice of thin light lines, separating
dark patches and blotches; similar naturally
depicted giraffes appear in an inhabited acanthus
scroll border on the Be"er Sheva pavement
(Cohen 1968: 130; Dauphin 1978: 408, pl. 14)
and at Kissufim. At the Ma#on synagogue a pair
of elephants are rendered in the side medallions
of row 8. An elephant is seen in the border of
the Beth She"an small synagogue. An elephant,
a giraffe, and a zebra are portrayed in a mosaic
panel at Kissufim. The giraffe is similar in the style
of its patches and blotches to those on the Gaza
and Be"er Sheva pavements. These three animals