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If the ‘Nile Mosaic’ had been put on display in the Vatican Museum in Rome, it would be the star attraction, certainly of the Egyptian rooms, surrounded by crowds of visitors. As things are, though, the mosaic is housed in the National Archaeological Museum of Palestrina – a provincial museum 30km or so east of Rome (think of St Albans in relation to London). Most people are unlikely to make the four-hour return trip from Rome just to see the mosaic. In my view, this is a major missed opportunity.
All Egypt in one image
What exactly is the Palestrina Nile Mosaic? Put simply, it is a spectacular scene depicting the River Nile created from several hundred thousand chips of coloured stone – tesserae – arranged in a rough rectangle (with a semi-circular projection at the top). The Nile floods the surrounding landscape, zigzagging back and forth from the Delta region at the base, as far as Upper Egypt and Meroë at the top. Measuring nearly 6 metres wide, and just over 4 metres high, it is of course not geographically accurate, and yet the mosaic with its vignettes manages to capture the essence of Graeco-Roman Egypt (1st century BC).
On the river there is plenty of traffic, including reed boats, sailing boats and, at the base, a Graeco-Roman trireme. Egypt’s abundant wildlife is shown, including two animals emblematic of the country: the crocodile and the hippo. Two of the hippos have been pierced by javelins during a hunt, while a man in a boat is about to throw another javelin at the third animal. The crocodiles fare better: while one basks on a small island, a second looks poised to dart to safety in the Nile. Numerous palms and tamarisks, trees native to Egypt, are dotted across the mosaic.
Monuments
Perhaps the most obvious signifier that we are in Egypt (at least in the middle and lower sections of the mosaic) is the architecture (shown opposite, and in detail over the page). In several places, towers are portrayed with dipped centres, or tell-tale signs of mud-brick construction. At the centre left, there is a building with a couple of obelisks; evidently these had not yet been taken away by the emperors to decorate the city of Rome.
The structure centre-right is clearly a pharaonic-style building. Unmistakeably shaped pylons, similar to those at Luxor, Edfu, Philae, and elsewhere, stand in front of a rectangular compound. The slots for the flagpoles are shown, as is the projecting cornice at the rooftop. Two figures stand on each side of the doorway. Slightly mummiform in appearance, they probably represent Osiris. Beyond the pylons things are less clear. The other buildings could be Roman. In fact, the pylon itself is unlike any Egyptian monument. The angles are unrealistic, and the statues stand too close to the sloping façade, fading almost into the shadows behind them. One wonders whether the artist had actually seen a pharaonic temple, or was instead relying on a verbal description of the sort that led to medieval Europe’s confusing depictions of Egypt’s monuments.
Precisely which temple this building is supposed to represent is much disputed. In particular, there have been discussions about the sculpted eagle above the centre of the façade. Did this represent Horus, as such signifying the temple as Edfu? Or was it supposed to be the eagle of Zeus/Ammon? The Greeks and Romans associated Egyptian deities with gods that they worshipped, and Zeus/Ammon was probably worshipped at Karnak, home to the Egyptian god Amun-Ra. If it is the royal eagle of the Ptolemies, then it might signify any of the Graeco-Egyptian temples of Upper Egypt. Yet another possibility is that the bird represented Osiris and rebirth. Together with the mummiform figures, the building might best be identified with the temple to Osiris at Canopus, near Alexandria, although it is depicted in the middle, rather than at the bottom, of the mosaic.
There is a great deal of debate about just how much of the Nile is depicted in the mosaic, with some (like Susan Walker) arguing it is just the Canopic distributary, with the rest of the Nile missed out or represented as a single stretch, and Nubia tacked to the top. Others, like Paul Meyboom, disagree and think much of the Nile is represented, so reading it more like a map. On the basis that different scholars have proposed totally different readings when trying to arrange toponyms along the river, Andy Merrills at the University of Leicester concludes that the mosaic is not a true geographical representation at all.
Upper section
If the middle section of the mosaic is the most quintessentially ‘Egyptian’ part, the upper section recalls Sub-Saharan Africa. Some scholars have raised the possibility that the upper section was originally an entirely separate mosaic. Whereas the lower two-thirds of the mosaic features toga- and armour-clad figures and a mixture of Classical and Egyptian temples, the top section is populated by lightly clad black figures armed with bows and arrows.
They are not short of animals to hunt: birds of various species fly through the sky and game animals abound, including lions, cheetahs, gazelle, wolves, and giraffe. The last is referred to charmingly as a ‘kamelopardalis’ – a cross between a camel and a leopard. There are at least four baboons hiding throughout the mosaic, some sitting on rocks, and most looking rather bored. Giant snakes (the artist did not have much of a sense of scale) coil around rocks. Look carefully and you might find a couple of crabs, two turtles, and a very large frog. Some of these animals are rather difficult to identify: one quadruped seems to have a human head. Handy annotations in Greek leave little doubt in most cases.
Lower section
There is little animal life to be found in the lower third of the mosaic, which is dominated by figures in togas. A group of soldiers, possibly a crack force of Macedonians, are gathered in front of a temple. People are waiting on a quayside; clearly they were anticipating something. But, besides a trireme that has just passed them, there is only a little reed boat in the harbour. It is possible that this part of the mosaic may once have been the centrepiece, depicting the arrival of a royal party.
If it were a Ptolemaic king, or one of Cleopatra’s many predecessors, it’s possible the section was removed and retiled after he or she fell from power – rather like the erasure of Hatshepsut and Akhenaten.
Reassembly
However, the scene we see now may not be quite the same as when it was first created. On no fewer than three occasions, the whole mosaic was moved from Palestrina to Rome. The first time this happened was in 1624-1626, when the mosaic ended up in the collection of one Cardinal Barberini. A copy of the image was made at the time, but unfortunately this was only after the mosaic was taken down and reassembled in Rome.
One hopes that the workers were meticulous, although the more one looks at the mosaic, the more doubts seep in. Parts of the mosaic resemble a patchwork quilt, and bear obvious signs of having been cut into very square sections. Some of these were not reassembled in the correct places. To make matters worse, there are discrepancies between a carefully drawn 17th-century copy of the mosaic, and the mosaic as it is now – for instance, a thin strip of the scene appears to be missing from down the centre. Are these due to careless copying or bungled restoration? There was plenty of opportunity for the latter, as the mosaic was taken apart a second time just over 200 years later, and then again during the Second World War. Each time it was taken to Rome. Palestrina might be presumed a safer location than a capital city during wartime, but the countryside around Rome saw heavy fighting as the Allies advanced through central Italy, and the museum building sustained damage. The mosaic has existed in its present state since 1952.
Temple of Fortuna
It is easy to gaze at the mosaic for half an hour and keep noticing new things. A flock of ibises suddenly taking off from where they were perched on a reed hut. Another ape. Another discontinuity, this time in the form of the rear of an elephant- like animal that lacks a head. A desert monitor lizard, camouflaged against a rock, looking for all the world like some prehistoric reptile. A ceremonial procession with priests bearing a sarcophagus or a litter, maybe depicting rites relating to Osiris. But, sooner or later, one wonders why this mosaic was assembled just on the outskirts of Rome? To answer that question, it is necessary to take a step back and consider the wider context in which the mosaic is situated.
The Palestrina Mosaic is not in its original position, but it was found only a hundred metres or so from the present museum, in an apse of a hall leading off from Palestrina’s Roman-era basilica. Both museum and basilica ruins are part of the same structure – a huge temple complex, dedicated to the Roman goddess Fortuna Primigenia, that was constructed into the hillside and is fronted by a series of five terraces.
A model of this exists in the museum, although the two lowest (and largest) terraces have been omitted. The museum is located on the uppermost terrace, while the terrace below now forms part of one of the few straight roads in the town. Further terraces extend down the hillside, many supported by large arched revetments. Two immense sloping ramps extend outwards to either side. The mystery is why such a complex – one of the largest in the ancient world – was built in provincial Italy?
Original construction
I hope you have now grasped that Palestrina is something rather special, and not merely a small Italian town that just happens to have an unusual mosaic. The mosaic is just part of a very unusual over- the-top temple complex, where everything was on a scale far larger than you would expect. Evidence suggests that the complex was built towards the end of the 2nd century BC. At the time, Rome was extending its grasp across the Mediterranean. Paradoxically, the Italian peninsula was then a patchwork of semi-autonomous states – some strongly linked to Rome, others in a loose alliance.
As Palestrina was one of the first areas to be absorbed by Rome, the elite there were doing well and, like the elite all over the world, Palestrina’s leading citizens were patriotically keen to show that their town was more than a provincial backwater. There are notable parallels between the hillside terraces of Palestrina and those in the eastern Mediterranean – the structures at Pergamon in Turkey come to mind. Up to and during the Roman era, the eastern Mediterranean was one of the booming regions of the ancient world. Rome’s elite had already bought into Hellenistic culture by collecting Greek art; now it was the turn of the provinces. Palestrina’s temple to Fortuna, and the Nile Mosaic that went with it, was the result.
Visiting Palestrina
Palestrina is relatively easy to reach from Rome. The city currently possesses only two Metro lines, and the best option for most visitors will be to take a Metro that heads out eastwards and ends at Anagnina station. The journey takes about 30 minutes. Adjacent to Anagnina station there is a bus station with several bays. Look for the bus heading to Genazzano (which runs roughly every half hour and takes about an hour, depending on the route taken). The historic core of Palestrina occupies a hill and quite literally towers over the approach road. The museum is then a 10- to 15 minute walk up a very steep road.
The National Archaeological Museum of Palestrina, inside the Colonna Barberini Palace, is a large brown building sporting national and international flags, and has a concave entrance; the door is in the centre, up a steep flight of steps. Unfortunately, disabled access to the building (and on the bus) is poor. Entrance to the museum is currently €14 (just over £12). Unlike in Rome, a few words of Italian will make things smoother, as staff neither at the bus park nor at the museum speak English.
Although the mosaic is the principal attraction of the museum, the other galleries are well worth looking at: there is a second gallery with less remarkable but still incredible mosaics, while a collection of Etruscan funeral urns is not to be missed. There are excellent views of the surrounding countryside from the museum. Palestrina itself has a beautiful historic core, much of it effectively pedestrianised as many of the streets are composed of staircases due to the steepness of the hills.
Robert R Frost is a historical geographer based at the Centre for Urban History at the University of Leicester. He recently completed a doctorate about the work of the antiquarian Egyptologist Sir John Gardner Wilkinson, and is now working on a Leverhulme-funded project assessing how Egyptologists have used maps to showcase their findings. His previous work on early 19th-century attempts to reconstruct pharaonic-era landscapes has been published by the Journal of Historical Geography and by the Royal Society.
Further reading:
• P G P Meyboom (1995) The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina: early evidence of Egyptian religion in Italy (Leiden: Brill).
• S Walker (2003) ‘Carry-on up the Canopus: the Nilotic mosaic from Palestrina and Roman attitudes to Egypt’, in R Matthew and C Roemer (eds) Ancient Perspectives on Egypt (New York: Routledge), pp.191-202.
• A Merrills (2017) Roman Geographies of the Nile (Cambridge University Press).
• T Joshua (2021) Art, Science, and the Natural World in the Ancient Mediterranean, 300 BC to AD 100 (Oxford University Press).
All images: courtesy of Helena Meijer, via Flickr, unless otherwise stated
