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C. Pastoral and Rural Scenes
The rural scenes depicted on inhabited scroll
pavements and on other mosaics include themes
such as a shepherd leaning on his staff watching
his flock, sometimes with a dog; men and women
in scenes such as harvesting; a figure leading a
camel; taming animals; fowling and bird catching,
fishing, and boating (Table VII-4).
A Shepherd Leaning on His Staff
A shepherd leaning on his staff appears in similar
posture in several of the mosaics (pl. VII.16):
the shepherd wears a short tunic decorated with
two orbiculi and a mantle on his left shoulder, his
upper torso is naked, his legs are crossed, his right
hand is raised above his head, and his left hand
rests on the staff; usually he wears sandals (Saller
and Bagatti 1949: 93; Piccirillo 1993: 40). In one
case the figure is a bearded older man, and in
another he is seated. The shepherd is with his
dog, and sometimes he is watching his flock of
sheep or goats.
The scene appears in vine rinceau medallions
on the mosaic floors: a shepherd wearing a short
tunic decorated with two orbiculi is portrayed
in the pose just decribed, his right hand raised
above his head, in the central medallion of row
8 of the vine rinceau at St. Stephen’s church at
Be"er Shem#a (Gazit and Lender 1993: 276). A
similar shepherd is seen in a vine rinceau medallion
of Room L at the Monastery at Beth She"an
(Fitzgerald 1939: 9, pl. XVI, XVII, 3). A shepherd
in the same posture watching his flock appears
on border mosaic at el-Maqerqesh, Beth Guvrin
(Avi Yonah 1981: pl. 49). A shepherd (head and
upper body destroyed) wearing a sleeveless tunic
rendered in similar pose, a seated dog with a collar
and a bell in two medallions in row A4 of the
vine rinceau mosaic of the north aisle of the Petra
Church (Waliszewski 2001: 224-225).
The shepherd appears on Jordan mosaics: In
an inhabited vine medallion on the mosaic at the
church of the Holy Martyrs Lot and Procopius on
Mt. Nebo he is an old bearded figure, with a dog
seated in the adjacent medallion. The shepherd
on the vine rinceau mosaic at the church of the
Deacon Thomas appears in the central medallion,
flanked on the left by a dog and on the right by
a goat, each in a separate medallion, with sheep
and a goat in the medallions in the row below.
A shepherd, wearing a short tunic decorated
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with two orbiculi, and a goat are depicted each
in two medallions of the vine rinceau mosaic at
the Chapel of Suwayfiyah (Piccirillo 1993: 131,
187, 264, figs. 147, 202, 253, 263, 275, 474) (the
Suwayfiyah goat is similar to a goat portrayed in
the Lower Church of Kaianus). The shepherd
appears slightly differently from the usual way:
his right hand rests on his left and he is without
a mantle, or it was in the destroyed part. A
shepherd dressed only in loincloth and barefoot
and leaning cross-legged on his stick, and the dog
crouching at his feet, are portrayed in a medallion
of the acanthus rinceau at the Burnt Palace
at Madaba; a ewe suckling her lamb is depicted
in the medallion to its left (Piccirillo 1993: 78,
figs. 36, 50). The third register of the first panel at
the Church of al-Khadir shows a shepherd, partly
destroyed by iconoclasts, wearing a mantle, leaning
on his staff, and watching his flock of sheep
and goats (Lux 1967: 170; Piccirillo 1993: 129,
fig. 142). A shepherd sitting on a stone watching
his flock—a goat and three sheep, with trees as
the background is the scene in the second register
of the lower mosaic at the Old Diakonikon-
Baptistry at the Memorial of Moses on Mt. Nebo
(Piccirillo 1993: 146, fig. 135). A shepherd leaning
on his staff followed by his flock is rendered in the
acanthus rinceau border at the church of the St.
Kyriakos, al-Quwaysmah (Piccirillo 1993: 268).
In the 8th-century St. Stephen at Umm al-Rasas
the remains of a shepherd leaning on a stick have
survived (Piccirillo 1993: 238, figs. 345, 383).
Saller and Bagatti (1949: 93) maintain that the
shepherd representation reveals that ‘the Christians
loved to record in works of art the efforts
which they made to safeguard and improve also
their temporal welfare’. Piccirillo (1989: 325-326)
contends that the shepherd in the mosaics of the
Madaba School is shown in pastoral scenes with
his dog, sheep and goats; sometimes he is the
flute player, sometimes the hunter who protects
his flock against predatory beasts.
Several scenes, showing sheep peacefully nibbling
foliage around a tree and without a shepherd,
appear on the first panel in the Kissufim
pavement; in a similar episode on the lower part
of the Jabaliyah Diakonikon pavement a rabbit
is added (fig. VII-9).
Women and Men in Everyday and Rural Activities
Scenes of everyday activities representing rural life
appear on mosaic pavements, several of them in