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Roman Mosaics lesson and art activity
Subject: Art and design
Age range: 7-11
Resource type: Worksheet/Activity
Last updated
3 October 2014
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Tes classic free licence
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doctor benway
I used this recently over several lessons with a combined Years 3 and 4 children and all loved it and the end results were very pleasing. A great idea, thank you xx
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KatieBell1986
Great ideas thank you! :)
bevjefferson2000
197819781978.
Looks really good - looking forward to trying this out! Thanks.
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These mosaics survived a millennia. Here's what they revealed about ancient Rome.
In 1983, ancient artworks were discovered on a farm in Carranque, Spain. Excavations revealed the unique history behind the site, and how the Romans portrayed their divinities.
On a hot July day in 1983, 18-year-old herder Samuel López made the find that changed his life and put the central Spanish town of Carranque on the world’s archaeological map. “My heart was pounding,” he said. “I started rummaging through the straw and found another tile and then another ... With the stick I used to herd the cows, I scraped the ground and realized I’d found a mosaic.”
López’s family had worked the land around Carranque for centuries. A tall stone ruin, said to be of ancient origin, dominated this parcel of land. Helping his father as a boy, López was no stranger to finding objects left behind long ago on the farm. He had accrued a collection of ceramic fragments and metal items near the stones, but the young man’s discovery in 1983 exceeded all these other finds. Calling on several of his brothers to help, López was stunned to see areas of elaborate mosaics emerging.
López alerted the Museum of Santa Cruz in the nearby city of Toledo. After initial examinations, archaeologists confirmed that the remains of an opulent Roman estate lay under the family’s farmland. The stone ruins were part of a wall from a fourth-century Roman palatial structure. To the south of it stood a villa, named Villa Maternus by the archaeologists for the name found inscribed on a threshold. Excavations revealed much larger works of art depicting mythological scenes. Large sections were intact, including the stunning mosaic of Oceanus with a long, flowing beard.
Flourishing in a last burst of glory before Roman Spain was overrun by invaders in the fifth century, the Villa Maternus was clearly the product of great power and wealth. The mosaics provide rich insight into this time and place, but the identity of the villa’s owner is still a mystery.
( An archaeologist suspected something special was buried here. She was right. )
Silver and oil
After defeating the Carthaginians in the second century B.C., the Romans seized the Iberian Peninsula in a significant victory. They now controlled the western Mediterranean and the silver mines of southern Spain, whose riches financed the Roman Republic’s ongoing transformation into a huge regional power and later an empire. Among its other important agricultural products, Iberia’s prized olive oil would become a Roman staple, later distributed to every corner of the Roman world.
The excavations that began at Carranque in 1985 confirmed that the villa López discovered had a complex history. Ceramic remains and other structures led archaeologists to date the settlement to the first to second centuries A.D. Later, in the final decades of the fourth century, the complex underwent a series of major renovations, giving the villa the impressive structures and floor plan seen today. This last phase took place during the fourth-century reign of Emperor Theodosius I, whose Spanish origins boosted the importance of the Hispano-Roman elite.
Archaeological studies established that the principal villa structure consisted of a central garden surrounded by a columned veranda, or peristyle. Around the garden were dining and reception rooms, many with rounded apses on their exterior walls.
Costly imported stonework, including porphyry and marble, adorned the walls. Most stunning of all are the mosaic floors. Some of the most complex and best preserved of all Hispano-Roman mosaic art, they were produced, evidently at great expense, by three workshops, each with its own style. The masterpieces they created include narratives depicting scenes from mythology, as well as animal and vegetable details, including partridges, a boar, dogs, baskets of flowers and fruit, and fishes .
( Find mosaics and mystery in an outpost of the Roman empire. )
Myths and ladies
On the eastern corner of the villa is a domestic space known as a cubiculum. On the threshold mosaic appears the name Maternus, and it is generally believed that this was the master of the house’s name.
The central mosaic dominating the room features the encircled likeness of a woman. Richly dressed, her head is surrounded by a halo, denoting greatness and virtue. Echoing other mosaic figures and themes at Carranque, she could be an allegory of a classical virtue, or the lady of the house, or both. The panels that surround her are unmistakably classical references: mythological figures, including Athena and Hercules, and scenes described in Metamorphoses by first-century poet Ovid.
In one, the goddess Diana is bathing while a nymph combs her hair. The furtive male figure watching is Actaeon, whom Diana will punish for his voyeurism by turning him into a stag to be hunted down and killed.
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The fusion of hunting and eroticism continues in the mosaic of the triclinium, or dining room, a more public space evidently designed to impress and delight guests. This mosaic likely depicts Adonis, the beautiful youth loved by Venus. He fights a boar that is about to kill him, to the horror of the watching goddess. Below are two wounded dogs, perhaps injured, by the boar. They may be portraits of the estate’s actual hunting dogs.
Another impressive carpet mosaic adorns the principal oecus, or reception area, depicting the gifting of the enslaved girl Briseis to Achilles during the Trojan War. Central to the plot of Homer’s Iliad , the unhappy story of Briseis echoes the fusion of eroticism and violence across the mosaics.
Opposite the entrance to the oecus is an alcove that once contained a fountain. In the recess above it is a magnificent portrait of the god Oceanus. Comprising tiny pieces that create the effect of wavelets or ripples, his flowing beard and somber expression have become the emblematic image of Carranque’s mosaic treasures.
( The oldest map of the Holy Land is actually a magnificent mosaic. )
Mystery of Maternus
Now in his late 50s and still a resident of Carranque, López has spent his life studying the excavations at the site he unearthed. The ruins are now known to be one of the most significant Hispano-Roman villas yet found. Sited on a key Roman road, it would have dominated the countryside around it in an ostentatious declaration of wealth. Historians have spent many years trying to identify who its powerful owner was.
Some argue that the Maternus named in the mosaicked inscription was Maternus Cynegius. An Iberian-born adviser to Emperor Theodosius, Maternus Cynegius would certainly have had the wealth and confidence to build such a lavish villa. But there is a catch: As a pious Christian, Maternus Cynegius facilitated Theodosius’s attacks on pagans across the empire. It is unlikely that a Christian of such zeal would have commissioned so many mosaics depicting the gods, goddesses, and myths of ancient Rome.
Rome’s long rule of Iberia ended in the decades shortly after Maternus—whoever he was—renovated his villa and commissioned his mosaics. Vandals and Visigoths invaded the peninsula in the fifth century B.C.
The palace structure to the north of the villa survived and was adapted as a Christian building until it was abandoned. Much of its stone was removed for use in local buildings, until only a portion of the wall remained. The mosaics were buried and lay hidden in the farmland of Castile until that hot day in 1983, when a young herder with an interest in history bent down to peer closer at the past.
( Visit Italy’s mesmerizing city of mosaics. )
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Counting with Roman Numerals
Roman Numerals were not just used for counting/ recording the number of objects but also the order of people sharing the same name.
Roman Numerals traditionally indicate the order of:
1. Rulers e.g.
2. Church leaders
XV means 10+5 =15 thus, XV=15
The current (265th) pope is Pope Benedict XVI, who was elected April 19, 2005. He is the 16th pope to have the name Benedict.
Roman Numerals were also used for as dating on cornerstones of buildings showing origin of a building, statutes, headstones, books publication such as in chapter titles, volume of book series, appendices, numbers on clocks and so on.
What is odd about the Roman numbers used on a clock or watch?
If you look at four, it is IIII instead of IV.
On the most famous clocks in the world - usually called Big Ben in the Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster where the UK Houses of Parliament are located, the numerals are in lower case, gothic script and the 4 is depicted as iv.
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©Copyright Mandy Barrow 2013 primaryhomeworkhelp.com
I teach computers at The Granville School and St. John's Primary School in Sevenoaks Kent.
Follow me on Twitter @mbarrow
Woodlands Junior School, Hunt Road Tonbridge Kent TN10 4BB UK
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Roman Mosaics. The floors of Roman buildings were often richly decorated with mosaics - tiny coloured stones (tesserae). Many mosaics captured scenes of history and everyday Roman life. Mosaic floors were a statement of wealth and importance. Rich Romans decorated the floors of their main rooms with mosaics. These were stuck to the floor with ...
After presenting the Roman art PowerPoint, you can hand out our mosaic Roman art colouring sheets, featuring four different templates. This will help to really immerse children in the idea of mosaic art and help them consolidate what they have learnt. Teaching about Ancient Roman art is useful as well as fun to teach children.
Designing a Roman-style mosaic and using printing techniques practised earlier to create their own mosaic. Hamilton's cross-curricular topics provide extensive planning resources to facilitate teaching a range of subjects under specific historical, geographic or thematic umbrellas. to let us know if it violates our terms and conditions.
Technique. Mosaics, otherwise known as opus tesellatum, were made with small black, white and coloured squares typically measuring between 0.5 and 1.5 cm but fine details were often rendered using even smaller pieces as little as 1mm in size.These squares (tesserae or tessellae) were cut from materials such as marble, tile, glass, smalto (glass paste), pottery, stone and even shells.
This KS2 Roman Mosaic Art Lesson Objectives Photo PowerPoint is ideal for introducing KS2 children to Roman culture and Roman art. Show KS2 students this PowerPoint to give examples of just how these magnificent pieces of Roman art were used to decorate homes and to tell fascinating stories. This Roman Mosaic PowerPoint can also be used as a general reference to learn more about Roman ...
This will help to really immerse children in the idea of mosaic art and help them consolidate what they have learnt. Teaching about Ancient Roman art is useful as well as fun to teach children. The Roman art intentions were specifically designed to show future generations, after they were long gone, what life what like in the past.
Roman Mosaics - Knowledge Organiser! Subject: Art and design. Age range: 7-11. Resource type: Assessment and revision. File previews. pdf, 209.78 KB. PNG, 679.2 KB. docx, 3.48 MB. This clear, detailed and visually-appealing resource offers a complete reference point for students learning about Roman Mosaics as a part of their art and design study.
Mosaic art pieces are made by setting small tiles—called tesserae (singular tessera) by the Romans, meaning "cubes," or "dice"—into a wet cement or lime plaster surface. In ancient times mosaics were made with colored pebbles. Other materials have included marble, hard stone, shells, mother-of-pearl, enamels, and terra-cotta.
Follow the fascinating history of Romans in Britain from their first invasion to the end of Roman rule. Download. English (PDF 392 KB) Download. Welsh (PDF 403 KB) All of the resources include ...
A mosaic is a picture made by embedding small pieces of material, usually stone or glass, onto floors and walls. The stone and glass pieces used to make the images are called tesserae. The Romans ...
Welcome to our Homework Help guide all about the Romans. Click through the chapters on the left-hand side to learn more about this famous period of time! As well as help with your homework, these guides contain lots of exciting activities that you can try at home and plenty of fun facts that you can impress your family and friends with.
History teaching resources for KS2 History - The Romans. Exploring Roman Britain, Roman gods and goddesses, Roman buildings, Roman roads, Boudicca, Roman food, Roman games. With Teacher Notes.
Primary Homework Help The Romans. by Mandy Barrow : Celts. Romans. Saxons. Vikings. Normans. Tudors. ... Roman Life: Roman Mosaics: Roman Numbers: Roman Roads: Roman Shields: Roman slaves: ... Glossary: mandybarrow.com . Roman Timeline . By the time the Romans came to Britain nearly 2000 years ago, the Egyptian civilisation had been going for ...
Age range: 7-11. Resource type: Worksheet/Activity. File previews. notebook, 1.25 MB. This lesson takes a brief look at some examples of Roman mosaics and discusses some of their features. This then leads into a lovely art lesson that we used for our Roman Day in year 4. The activity requires a blank CD case and different types of beans.
Session3. Intro: Explain that the aim of this session is to learn tohandle and to cut clay to make regular sized tiles for themosaics. Introduce the tools and materials and then split thechildren into groups. The clay will then be left todry out. Each child will make about 52 tiles.
Maternus's pleasure An inscription found in mosaic form in the villa's cubiculum is thought to name the villa's wealthy Roman owner at the end of the fourth century. It also names the artisan ...
Roman Mosaics Primary Homework Help 1. Step To get started, you must first create an account on site StudyHub.Vip. The registration process is quick and simple, taking just a few moments. During this process, you will need to provide a password and a valid email address. 2. Step In order to create a "Write My Paper For Me" request ...
Roman words and terms. Queen Boudicca. Roman Roads. Roman Baths. Roman Timeline. Roman Army. BBC Romans. Find out what The Romans were like on this excellent BBC site written especially for primary aged children. Discover what happened when the Romans came to Britain, from invasion and rebellion to leisure and home life.
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The Romans thought that their gods were all part of a family and people told stories or myths about them. The most important gods to the Romans were the Greek gods from Mount Olympus. The Greek gods were given Roman names, for example, Zeus became Jupiter. Their gods included: Jupiter. King of the Gods. God of the sky; Weapon: Thunderbolt
Roman Numerals were also used for as dating on cornerstones of buildings showing origin of a building, statutes, headstones, books publication such as in chapter titles, volume of book series, appendices, numbers on clocks and so on. Roman numbers on a clock face. What is odd about the Roman numbers used on a clock or watch?