Mosaics In Ancient Rome

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Roman mosaics were fairly common throughout the Roman Empire they could be found in public places and in the villas of the wealthy Romans. Roman mosaics are made of geometrical blocks called tesseare they are mostly blue, black, red, white, and yellow, assemble together to form a picture. They could be found at the entrances to homes, on the floors, or fountains as well in public places. People had them to show a sign of wealth and status, they were pleasing to the eye, and some depicted a scene or family. The earliest forms of Roman mosaics were found around the second century BC the earliest was a floor mosaic. Mosaics are similar to tiling, some type of putty or plaster is laid down to hold the tile or tesseare in place, sometimes an outline was made first then filled in. Mosaics influenced daily and cultural life by giving the Roman people something rich and beautiful to look at the mosaics depicted scenes of family life of the people of the great villas, Egyptian landscapes and rituals mythological subjects, and Roman gods which were some of the most popular scenes. They often are still used …show more content…
They often have a skylight which was used to let light into the rest of the house and it allowed the cisterns to be filled by rainwater for use but the villas occupants. They were meant to impress them draw people in. They started in the early republic and they are still used to this day just without a cistern. They were able to make these atriums with the skylights by using the arch and manipulating it in certain geometric ways so that they can support a roof with a skylight in the roof. The atriums show a sign of wealth power to the villas guests and it let light and water into the home. Atriums still influence our architecture today because we still use skylights in many buildings for natural light and some homes still use cisterns for their water

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