Treasure in the Trash

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Most people, when they first see this hauntingly beautiful mosaic discovered at Tel Dor, think it shows a woman, as did BAR editor Hershel Shanks when he visited the site in the summer of 2008. He compared it favorably with the Sepphoris mosaic that has been dubbed the “Mona Lisa of the Galilee,” suggesting it might be called the “Mona Lisa of Dor.” When the mosaic’s excavators and publishers¹ explained that it was in fact depicting a theater mask of a young male, suspended from a floral garland, BAR contributing editor Suzanne Singer suggested a better sobriquet—the Adonis of Dor.

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Unfortunately, this fragment of the mosaic was not found in situ. In fact, it had been thrown away in antiquity. Given its superb quality, it is hard to believe that anyone would intentionally destroy this mosaic. Was it destroyed by an earthquake? Or by some conqueror? Most likely it was removed from its original setting and disposed of during Roman times as part of a city-wide reorganization and redevelopment project. Because it was found in an architectural dump, we do not know what kind of building it came from—or its exact date. Its style suggests that it dates from around 100 B.C.E. when Dor, an apparently Phoenician city, was a busy Hellenistic port on the eastern Mediterranean coast, about 15.5 miles south of the modern city of Haifa and 37 miles north of Tel Aviv.

Dor is a well-preserved example of one of the many independent city-states that dominated the Levantine coastal plain and inland valleys in the Hellenistic era. The later Hasmonean kings, notably Alexander Jannaeus (who ruled 104–78 B.C.E.), campaigned to curb the power of these cities and to annex their territories to the Judean kingdom. According to Josephus, the tyrant Zoilos ruled Dor and its neighboring city Straton’s Tower (later called Roman Caesarea) in the late second century B.C.E.² Alexander Jannaeus may have wrestled control of these cities away from Zoilos around 100 B.C.E., right around the time the mosaic was made—and then ruthlessly destroyed.

The mosaic is the most fully preserved example of opus vermiculatum found in Israel; indeed, it is one of only two known, the other being a highly fragmentary example from Tel Anafa in the Upper Galilee. Opus vermiculatum, or “wormy 039work,” is a mosaic technique employing very tiny pieces of stone, ceramic and glass 3–5 millimeters in diameter—and sometimes smaller still—set into a fine mortar bed. The variety of colors used is extraordinary and includes a wide range of reds, blues and yellows, as well as white. Most of the tesserae, or cut mosaic cubes, are tiny squares, but their size and shape vary depending on their position. Where the white background approaches the decorated area, the tesserae laid in the vermiculatum technique include tiny irregular chips, often only 1 millimeter across, and begin to curve, like a worm, in order to follow the contours of the face, fruit or flowers.

The rendering of the forms in this mosaic reflects a master’s touch. The range of colors is astonishing: pinkish brown and light gray for the skin; pinkish-red for rounded features like the cleft chin, ear, right cheek and nostrils; white mixed with soft yellow for highlights. The right side of the face is shaded brown to emphasize the turn of the head. Various tones of red are used for the parted lips. Enough is preserved of the open mouth to reveal that its left side ends abruptly in a vertical line, showing how it was cut through the fabric of the mask. The surviving parts of the nose are outlined in brown. The heavy-lidded eyes are hooded by thick, dark eyebrows. The eyes, with large pupils, are composed of especially small tesserae; the left eye consists of almost 30 of them.

The face is framed at the sides by brown wavy hair falling in ringlets. The figure wears a red and gold hat studded by four small clusters of light yellow-green ivy fruits. Below the ivy fruit clusters is a fillet rendered in browns and blues. A remarkable blue-green ribbon ties all the elements—hat, fillet, fruits and mask—together; it also secures the mask to the garland behind it and billows out along the bottom of the field. The ribbon is rendered in dark blue, bright blue, light blue and green glass and stones that are nearly 040turquoise. These variations of light and dark—what is called chiaroscuro—create a striking illusion of depth on the two-dimensional surface.

But who or what is this mask? We know from an ancient source, Julius Pollux, the author of a second-century C.E. Greek dictionary, or onomasticon, listing the character types used in Greek theater. Pollux describes their physical features as they would be rendered in actors’ masks. The Dor mosaic’s mask combines features of two comedic character types, one “delicate” and the other “wavy-haired”; both are described as soft young men, pale from their time spent indoors at parties.

The rest of the fragment shows the rich garland on which the mask is suspended. It includes variegated ivy sprays, wild olives, pomegranates and wild roses. Other floral fragments (not shown) incorporate even more fruits and flowers, from pinecones to lotus, creating a rich, fecund atmosphere. A particularly large piece of the garland was found with a yellow ribbon winding around it; perhaps this yellow ribbon was used to secure another mask, now lost, to the garland.

The mask-and-garland area of the floor was bordered by a meander, or Greek key motif, rendered in perspective to give the illusion of three dimensions. Several meander fragments were recovered, as well as hundreds of fragments of the garland and plain white areas of the floor. Just a few fragments of the center of the floor have been identified thus far. We have just enough material to hazard a guess at what it showed: an outdoor scene, as indicated by the left arm of a small-scale figure holding a lagobolon (throwing stick) used to hunt rabbits and other small game. This figure stands on a rock. Perhaps he is Pan, the Greek god of shepherds and their terrain, the wilderness.

Although the Dor mosaic is the only example from Israel, mask-and-garland decoration is common in border areas of mosaic floors beginning in the Hellenistic period. Often these decorations 041are themselves bordered by geometric motifs such as meander. Examples are known from nearby Hellenistic centers—at one of which the Dor mosaicist was almost certainly trained—from Alexandria in Egypt to the Greek island of Delos to Pergamon in western Turkey. Often the garlands display masks of varied character type, including old men and women. A small fragment of a second mask from Dor has thin brows and faces to the right. Since both features diverge from the well-preserved example, with its thick brows and left-facing orientation, we may speculate that the Dor mosaic probably contained masks with different characters and corresponding physical features.

Taken together, the mosaic’s fruits, flowers, masks and central scene showing “Pan” in the wilderness create a festive mood associated with the Greek deity Dionysos, god of theater, wine and drunkenness. In private Greek homes, Dionysos was honored with a dining and drinking party called a symposion. A symposion would typically be held in an andron, or “man’s room,” so called because it housed groups of men gathered to dine, drink wine, talk politics, sing songs and play games.

Such gatherings were popular and socially important throughout the Mediterranean, where they had different local meanings and forms. So despite its fragmentary state, we may speculate that the Dor mosaic once decorated the floor of a private home, most likely one used for parties and wine drinking. The wealthy patron of Dor’s mosaic floor may have used this space in a similar social fashion as the Greeks from whom the design elements were borrowed.

These points, however tenuous, contribute to what we already know about the history of Dor in this period, the period of domination by the tyrant Zoilos. Since the mosaic’s wealthy patron was prominent enough to attract an artist trained in a major Greek city, and since he had no qualms about representing pagan themes and religious imagery, it is tempting to place the Dor mosaic in the palace of Zoilos, and its brutal destruction at the hands of his Judean conqueror, Alexander Jannaeus. No such “Zoileion” (palace of Zoilos) has been found at Dor, however. For the time being we can only speculate and hope that new discoveries may give us some answers.

Most people, when they first see this hauntingly beautiful mosaic discovered at Tel Dor, think it shows a woman, as did BAR editor Hershel Shanks when he visited the site in the summer of 2008. He compared it favorably with the Sepphoris mosaic that has been dubbed the “Mona Lisa of the Galilee,” suggesting it might be called the “Mona Lisa of Dor.” When the mosaic’s excavators and publishers1 explained that it was in fact depicting a theater mask of a young male, suspended from a floral garland, BAR contributing editor Suzanne Singer suggested a better sobriquet—the Adonis of […]