Mosaic of Qabr Hiram
Unknown · c. 575 AD
Four long panels of mosaic pavement show animals in pursuit: a bear chasing a horse, a panther after a bull, a greyhound after a hare and a lioness after a boar. Each chase runs inside a border of jewel-like cabochons and pearls, and the creatures are drawn with real energy, their legs stretched at full gallop. These panels paved the spaces between the columns on the south side of a church, so worshippers walked on them as they moved down the aisle. The tesserae are marble and limestone with touches of coloured glass.
The mosaic comes from the church of Saint Christopher at Qabr Hiram, near Tyre in present-day Lebanon, dated by an inscription in another part of the pavement to June 575, in the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justin the Second. It was discovered in 1861 during the mission to Phoenicia led by the scholar Ernest Renan, and the pavement was lifted and shipped to France, entering the Louvre in 1862. Its hunting scenes, with no Christian symbol in sight, show how late antique churches borrowed the decoration of villas and palaces.
Did You Know? The pavement was found by the expedition of Ernest Renan, the writer who later scandalised Europe with his Life of Jesus.
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