The Silchester article discusses a tessellated floor with a possible mosaic.
'one room of ERMB 1 was decorated with a tessellated floor, the surviving fragment of the border probably framing a central mosaic' (Clarke et al. 2007 - Period 3 discussion).
Context Type = floor: tessellated Returned = 18 results: 4 OASIS, 4 LEAP, 10 RRAD
Looking in more detail at the four results returned from LEAP data (Contexts 1125, 1126, 2095, 2496), 1125 is a 'Tessellated floor surface located in the east corner of Room 2' within Group 50018, which is noted to be 'NE Stone building - Stone phase 1', while Context 1126 is seen as the gravel make-up layer for the tessellated floor.
The results contain another tessellated floor (2496), which the Silchester article mentions in the section on the corridor (verandah) of the house, 'There are traces of tile-tessellated and opus signinum flooring (2496, 3261) that might have formed part of the fourth side, extending south-westwards along the south-east-facing corridor.' This context 2496 is within Group 50035, which is noted in the data to be 'House 1 Aisled building'.
Thus we find (reassuringly) agreement between the Silchester article and STAR Demonstrator. More significantly, results are also returned from other datasets. Several, possibly similar, examples of tessellated corridors from the Raunds villa suggest that this surfacing of corridors was not just practised in Roman town houses like the one at Silchester.
Another search strategy is to focus on finds.
Find type = Mosaic Returned = 8 results: 8 RRAD
Results are returned from RRAD using the query mosaic – the discussion in section 4.3 picks up the possibility of further terminological support in this scenario.
© Internet Archaeology/Author(s)
University of York legal statements | Terms and Conditions
| File last updated: Mon July 18 2011