Restoration of the Alexander Mosaic Reveals Tile Sources

NAPLES, ITALY—According to a Live Science report, a new study of the Alexander the Great mosaic, which was discovered in 1831 in Pompeii’s House of the Faun and is now housed at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, suggests that its more than two million tesserae came from quarries in Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, Greece, and Tunisia. Museum researchers used portable X-ray fluorescence to identify chemical elements in the stones and record their colors, including shades of white, brown, red, yellow, pink, green, gray, blue, black, and vitreous, or glassy. For example, the depiction of Alexander’s face was found to be composed with different levels of luminescence and several shades of pink tesserae thought to have been imported from Portugal. Traces of wax and gypsum on the mosaic are thought to have been applied as a protective layer during restoration projects, or perhaps as a support when the mosaic was transported from Pompeii to the museum. Conservators also conducted an endoscopic investigation of the back of the mosaic, revealing “many empty portions” where gypsum had not been applied. “These potential areas of weakness should be taken into due consideration during restoration,” the team members stated. Read the original scholarly article about this research in PLOS ONE. To read about Alexander's childhood, go to "Alexander the Great's Untold Story."