Untitled

286
part of the repertory of pattern books used by
mosaicists.
The mosaics give us some indication of the
society which created them. The two communities,
Jewish and Christian, treated the decoration
of their edifice floors quite differently. The
church pavement designs display and reflect both
rural and urban life in the Byzantine period. The
various renditions of village activities and hunting
episodes reveal everyday bucolic life of the
inhabitants in the countryside, while the architectural
representations of buildings and a walled
city (which appear mainly on church pavements
in Jordan: Piccirillo 1993: 26-37) apparently were
meant to represent urban life. Avi-Yonah (1960a:
23) contends that the influence of the aristocratic
classes is featured in the hunter’s portrayal as a
victorious emperor (pl. VII. 11-13); the villagers
on the other hand are presented by the shepherd
(pl. VII. 16), whose life is sometimes cheered by
the flute player or by exotic visitors such as the
man leading his giraffe (pl. VII.4, 15). Synagogue
pavement ornamentation, on the other hand, features
motifs of Jewish symbols, the Jewish yearly
calendar, and biblical scenes. It reflects the Jewish
tradition, ritual conventions, and belief while
refraining from representing everyday life.
The social aspect of the mosaic pavements is
reflected in the involvement and participation of
members of the community in the building of
the edifice and in the contribution to its ornamentation.
This is apparent from the inscriptions
mentioning frequently the clergy, bishops,
priests, and monks at each place. Many of the
donors, including women, clearly contributed to
the choice of the subject matter selected for the
pavements decoration.
C. Were the Mosaic Pavements Designs Purely
Decorative or Invested with Symbolism?
Scholars debate what significance can be applied
to mosaic compositions and designs which
include recurring motifs of humans, animals,
rural episodes, and hunting vignettes. Many of
the themes have a secular character, similar to
the ornamentation of earlier mosaic pavements of
Roman villas in North Africa. To what extent may
the mosaic have lost its symbolic dimension and
become purely decorative? Were compositions
like the inhabited scrolls invested with symbolism?
Are the depictions allegorical and symbolic,
chapter thirteen
or are they literal, describing various activities of
a local community? Do the iconographic themes
perform a decorative function, or carry a religious
meaning with a symbolic role? Did the implications
of the mosaic designs change as they moved
from the secular to the religious setting?
Some scholars maintain the mosaic pavements
had a decorative function alone. Others believe
that the iconographic themes and compositions
on mosaics of churches and synagogues of the
Byzantine period reflect an iconographic symbolic
program. Others still hold an intermediate
approach: the mosaics are symbolic as well as
decorative (Talgam 2000: 95-98).
Biebel (1938: 302-305) and Crowfoot (1941:
40-41) argue that most mosaic pavements are secular,
and their popularity was due to their highly
valued ornamentation design.
Among the scholars who interpret the compositions
and motifs as symbolic are Saller and
Bagatti (1949: 92-98). They maintain that these
pavements (with scenes such as pastoral life, fishing,
and boating) represent ordinary local country
life. However, they interpret the symbolism
of the vine as allegory: ‘both the Christians and
the Jews believed that they were the vineyard of
the Lord... under His special protection could
produce rich spiritual fruits’. The mosaics might
represent activities taken from real life, indicating
a prosperous agricultural community in these
areas. Grabar (1968: 53) contends that the vine
scroll mosaics, and their content of bucolic life,
objects, and animals, ‘show how the secular symbolic
image of a specific landed property becomes
in the hands of the Christians the image of the
earth in general and in particular the ideal land
governed by God’. Evans (1982) relates the Jerusalem
inhabited vine scroll mosaic to early Armenian
sources, and associates the birds with the
symbolism of resurrection. Piccirillo (1989: 338-9)
maintains that the iconography of the Madaba
school mosaics reminds the onlooker of the Lord’s
creation, and the vine especially is connected with
God. Trilling in his assessment of the mosaic of
the Great Palace in Constantinople provides an
insight and interpretation of the same subject
matter, which appears also in church mosaics in
Palaestina and Arabia. He states (1989: 58, 66,
68): ‘There are only three categories of subject
matter in the mosaic, and every identifiable scene
belongs to at least one of them. The categories
are rural or idyllic life, animal violence and protection
(hunting, soldiers combating wild animals; some