Pavimenti ellenistici da Metaponto ed Herakleia

A small group of Hellenistic pavements comes from the residential areas of Metaponto and Herakleia. It attests the use of several techniques in the Greek world between the end of the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C. Known only through brief and sometime unpublished descriptions, this evidence has not yet been the object of a detailed study within the broader framework of the Hellenistic mosaic culture. This paper focuses on three examples that are particularly important from a technical and a decorative point of view. The unique evidence from Metaponto is dated between the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 3rd centuries B.C., and is one of the few known examples of pebble mosaic in the Western-Greek world. Instead, the two other pavements, both found in the so called “Città Alta” of Herakleia, belong to the 3rd century B.C. mosaic production, and they show highly original features. They are a fragment of an irregular tesserae mosaic, which is characterized by a mender surrounding a series of different figured panels (block IV); and an uncommon mortar pavement with a pebble mosaic emblem, which exceptionally preserves the signature of the mosaicist (block II).