A Roman mosaic packed with mythical characters and beasts based on classical legend has been unearthed at a dig in Boxford, West Berkshire.
The 1,600-year-old find has been described as ‘the most exciting mosaic discovery made in Britain in the last 50 years.’
The 6m-long mosaic, from 380 CE, was found by amateur archaeologists and historians, supervised by Cotswold Archaeology.
A Roman mosaic packed with mythical characters and beasts based on classical legend has been unearthed at a dig in Boxford, West Berkshire. Cupid is shown on the mosaic holding a wreath thought to represent one of the seasons
Mosaic expert Antony Beeson, who visited the site, said: ‘This is without question the most exciting mosaic discovery made in Britain in the last fifty years and must take a premier place amongst those Romano-British works of art that have come down to modern Britons.’
‘The range of imagery is beyond anything seen in this country previously,’ Duncan Coe, project lead officer at Cotswolds Archaeology, one of the groups carrying out the excavation, told IBTimes UK.
The central scene shows Bellerophon riding the winged horse Pegasus as he attacks the Chimaera, a fire-breathing monster with the head of a lion, torso of a goat and rear of a dragon.
The 1,600-year-old find has been described as ‘the most exciting mosaic discovery made in Britain in the last 50 years’
The 6m-long mosaic, from 380 CE, was found by amateur archaeologists and historians, supervised by Cotswold Archaeology
In another image, a man wearing a lion skin, believed to be Hercules, fights a centaur.
Cupid is also shown on the mosaic holding a wreath thought to represent one of the seasons.
The recent excavation at Boxford is the last in a three-year project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund investigating three Roman sites.
Together with Boxford History Project and the Berkshire Archaeology Research Group, the organisations have uncovered incredible archaeological finds including a large villa, a bath house and a farmstead.
‘The range of imagery is beyond anything seen in this country previously,’ said Duncan Coe, project lead officer at Cotswolds Archaeology