KorbenDallas

Roman Mosaic Showing the Transport of an Elephant

Roman mosaic from Veii (Isola Farnese, Italy) depicting an African elephant being loaded onto a ship, 3rd-4th century CE. Now in Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe, Germany.
Why are the men on the ship dressed differently to the men on the shore?
Why do the men on the shore wearing tights or leggings look "medieval" ?
Nothing is in scale or proprtion in that image. Its quite staggering to read claims of fantastic skill and quality in all things Roman then look at these frankly crappy mosaics and realise these things are attributed to the same people.

They can perfectly proportion fine glass objects for example but cannot proportion mosaics?
Okay makes sense I suppose....not really.

Oh and how does one date a mosaic with any degree of accuracy?

Well look here from the source site another out of proportion elephant loading mosaic!
Source
80d.jpg
 
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I will try to adjust the size of the embedded images.

As far as dwarf elephants go, if these are no normal African elephant babies, than we still have an issue.
  • The Pleistocene: the epoch that lasted from c. 2.58 million to 11,700 years ago.
 
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