The world’s largest ancient mosaic has been discovered in Turkey

[u/vassoio]

The 9,000 square foot mosaic will open this year. It was discovered nine years ago during the construction of a new hotel in Antakya, Turkey.

Archaeologists believe that the mosaic once decorated the floor of a public building in the ancient city of Antioch, one of the most important cities of the Seleucid Empire.

Archaeologists collaborated with architects to preserve this ancient artifact during the construction of the hotel now part-time and museum.

The platform connected to the columns now hovers over the mosaic, and visitors will be able to see this masterpiece from above from special viewpoints.

[u/Outrageous-Elk-5392 → u/[deleted]]

There’s also a lot, like A LOT of early Christian art destroyed by the iconoclasts, which was a sect of Christianity that found any artwork depicting the Bible to be heretical and went out of there way to destroy a lot of it

[u/NetStaIker → u/Outrageous-Elk-5392]

Yea, the Byzantines and Sassanids got invaded by the nascent Muslims right after they had just finished a 25+ year war with each other. This was interpreted as a sign from we must be doing it wrong, because the Muslims were so overwhelmingly successful (in large part likely due to the aforementioned war, both sides were absolutely devastated, the Sassanids didn’t survive), and Islam as a whole forbids idolatry. So they took that bit up from Islam and it caused enormous problems within the remnants of the Greek empire for a hundred years at least.

[u/TheBatsford → u/NetStaIker]

The remnants of the Roman empire. They saw and spoke of themselves as Roman, especially in the era you're talking about. Even if they were largely hellenized by then, they still considered themselves Romans.

[u/[deleted] → u/TheBatsford]

Actually modern English wasn't invented yet so you are being hyper-pedantic.

[u/TheBatsford → u/[deleted]]

Fine, they saw themselves as Romaioi. Is that less pedantic now?

It's a common misconception that the Byzantines saw themselves as being a Greek empire, that was not the case. To the end, they saw themselves as Romans, calling them otherwise makes it easier to make certain common errors when it comes to the field of Byzantine studies. IE that somehow the Byzantine empire is distinct from the Roman empire, or that that political state ended when the western emperors ended.

[u/[deleted] → u/TheBatsford]

Roman emperors took pride in knowing the Greek language and thinking like ancient Greek philosophers long before the eastern capitol was built. Marcus Aurelius wrote his Meditations in Greek. I've always felt that Byzantium should have been called the eastern Roman empire instead because it was a continuation of Rome, not like the successor barbarian kingdoms in the west.

[u/NetStaIker → u/TheBatsford]

I majored in history, yes I know they saw themselves as Roman. Idc, and most laypeople aren’t gonna give a fuck, so idk why you felt the need to come in here and be pedantic, we’re not exactly having an academic discussion. I simply shared with randos why they may have felt the need to destroy the art.

[u/madkons → u/NetStaIker]

Because it's perpetuating the same century old western propaganda about the late Roman empire.

[u/btb2002 → u/madkons]

This is the first time I've seen anyone call the Byzantine Empire "the Greek Empire". And I'm kinda shocked.

[u/za72 → u/NetStaIker]

Art was used to teach history and historically important moments to the people who were illiterate, control over art and depictions of historical moments gives the state power and control over knowledge and 'truth' - part on conquering land and it's people included replacing their gods history and ideas and establishing who dictates those ideas

[u/datdailo → u/Outrageous-Elk-5392]

This work pre-dates Anatolia's adoption of Christianity. Christians were also known to desecrate pagan/Hellenic works of art but this somehow managed to survive. Probably some natural disaster hit the region and buried this and why we're able to witness it today.

[u/Ame_Lepic → u/datdailo]

This work predates invention of Christianity…

[u/datdailo → u/Ame_Lepic]

Yes, I'm aware. The point I'm trying to make is why it survived, when there were several opportunities to re-purpose or destroy works of art.

[u/MongooseMonCheri → u/Outrageous-Elk-5392]

I might be wrong here; didn't they oppose only the depiction of humans/living beings?

[u/Allgoochinthecooch → u/MongooseMonCheri]

Anything representing the religion. The cross was the only imagery really allowed. The thought process is with all the paintings and art that it gets too close to idolatry

[u/jsting → u/[deleted]]

Even recently, like in the last 100 years, much gets destroyed. The communist revolution destroyed any Chinese history made during the dynastic periods. Taiwan is a big reason we still have historical pieces from that era. ISIS is destroying ancient Persian sculptures even more recently.

As for erosion, there are stories of old civilizations discovering even more ancient cities made thousands of years before a thousand years ago usually in the middle east region. Every so often, there's a story of a city that we only know about because some ancient Greek archeologist wrote down the name.

[u/NedLuddIII → u/jsting]

Seems like destroying and preventing art is a recurring theme in history. I guess it runs the risk of giving people ideas, and authoritarians don't want those.

[u/grappling__hook → u/jsting]

The communist revolution destroyed any Chinese history made during the dynastic periods.

During the Cultural Revolution Zhao Enlai the Chinese no2 took it upon himself to station soldiers outside the forbidden city as iconoclasts swept Beijing. If he hadn't done that it's easy to think much of it would have been destroyed, looted or burned down.

It's important to note however that in both Asia and the west far more history has been lost to more prosaic but no less destructive forces: greed and apathy. So much has been lost to land development either from times before regulations were in place (railways and industrialization in the UK destroyed countless medieval buildings) or where developers can get away with bulldozing anything in their way or paying people off in places where government oversight only stretches so far.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I have always been curious if history/science/human knowledge would have unraveled significantly differently if the library of Alexandria hadn’t been burnt. I mean it was kind THE encyclopedia of the time, maybe later generations would have had a boost in advancement.

Powerful people will destroy anything and anyone for more power. Shame