Archaeologists working in the Israeli city of Lod recently discovered a Roman-style mansion with elaborate mosaics that clearly belonged to a wealthy family. Ruth Schuster writes:
The archaeological find indicates the house survived in one form or another from the [beginning of the] Roman era—the 1st century CE—to the late-Roman era, around the late-3rd century or early-4th century. Based on other Roman-era homes found in the area, which also had mosaic decorations, it appears that this luxurious [home] had been in the elite neighborhood of Roman-era Lod. The Israel Antiquities Authority excavators also found Roman-era coins, ceramics, and marbles, as well as other signs of luxury such as fragments from frescoes typical of the finer houses of Rome itself. . . .
The [most prominent of the] newfound mosaics depicts nothing but animals and nature. No people. But it has a motif of three fish in the middle. . . . [It’s possible] that the inhabitants had been Jews who eschewed the human figures in art due to a biblical prohibition. Or maybe the house belonged to early Christians, [as fish are an ancient Christian symbol], but no other artifacts typical of the Christian faith have been discovered there. . . . Or maybe the owners were pagans. . . .
The [other] Lod mosaics were first found in 1996. In what’s becoming a cliché in Israeli archaeology, the initial discovery was made by construction workers, in this case building a sewage system, supervised—as is the norm in Israel—by archaeologists. . . . Eventually [the mosaic] will presumably be housed in the future Lod archaeological museum, . . . which is being built directly next to where it had been found in the first place.
Read more on Haaretz: https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/MAGAZINE-while-building-a-mosaics-museum-in-israel-another-mosaic-is-found-1.6318751