Mosaic Fragment with the Prophecy of Isaiah
Unknown · Fifth century AD
A young man in a tunic grasps two snakes, one in each hand, while the remains of a hoof and a clawed paw at the edges tell you that other animals once shared the scene. To the right survive the beginnings of nine lines of Greek. They are the opening words of a famous passage from the book of Isaiah: the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard with the kid, and a child shall put its hand on the viper's den. The fragment is about a metre square, broken on every side, and was restored in 2011.
The prophecy of peace among the animals was a favourite theme for the floors of early Christian churches in the eastern Mediterranean, and this pavement probably came from Phoenicia or Syria in the fifth century. The child playing safely with serpents is the last image in Isaiah's vision, so the missing part of the floor presumably showed the wolf and the lamb and the other peaceful pairs. The Louvre bought the fragment in 2000, adding a text and an image to a collection rich in late antique mosaics from the Levant.
Did You Know? The boy with the snakes illustrates the verse in Isaiah where a child puts its hand into the viper's nest and is not harmed.
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