Mosaic Tessera

Mosaic Tessera

A mosaic tessera, accessioned into the Queensland Museum as one of six. The tesserae are are rectilinear and most are in a pale buff colour. One is a dark brown/black colour and several have traces of cement.

The tessera is one of five is said to have been taken by ER Sgt Leslie William Page from a larger mosaic floor he uncovered on a hilltop at or near Deir El Belah, Palestine, in 1917 along with human remains, nails and coins. This collection was donated by Page to the Queensland Museum in July 1933. All documentation relating to this donation suggests there were five tesserae, not the six that are currently present in the Queensland Museum collection, but it is possible that two were still joined together by cement and formed one object. In a letter accompanying his donation, Page records that he uncovered the mosaic and other finds "on the top of a fairly high sugar load sort of hill... at a depth of some 6 or 8 inches under the sand". The find probably occurred between March and May 1917 when Page was stationed with the Australian Provost Corps near Deir el-Belah.

AD 100 - AD 600

Height: 8 mm

Width: 12 mm

Depth: 12 mm

C.013.004

QM H2380

© Queensland Museum, Peter Waddington.

Collected by ER Sgt. Leslie Page, Deir El-Belah, Gaza Strip, 1917.
Donated by ER Sgt. Leslie Page to the Queensland Museum, Brisbane, July 1933.

Queensland Museum, Brisbane

Avi-Yonah, M. (1933). Mosaic Pavements in Palestine. Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine 2: 136-181.

Briggs, M. S. (1918). The Mosaic Pavement of Shellal, near Gaza. The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, 32(182), 185-189. http://www.jstor.org/stable/860637

Dalton, O. M. (1919). The Tessellated Pavement of Umm Jerar. The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, 34(190), 3-10. http://www.jstor.org/stable/860810

Drake, L. F. M. (1918). A Sixth Century Greek Mosaic at Um Jerar. Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 50(3), 122-124. https://doi.org/10.1179/peq.1918.50.3.122

Drake, L. F. M. (1919). An Early Christian Mosaic at Deir Dakleh. The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, 34(193), 145-144. http://www.jstor.org/stable/860773

Ross, V., & Midford, S. (2020). Uncovering the classics in the Sinai and Palestine campaign: the Australian First World War archaeological excavation of the Shellal Mosaic. History Australia, 17(2), 308-327. https://doi.org/10.1080/14490854.2020.1756866

Queensland Museum Inwards Correspondence #00323 (1933)

Queensland Museum Inwards Correspondence #00373 (1933)

Cook, S. A. (1920). The “Holy Place” of ‘Ain Dûk. Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 52(2), 82-87. https://doi.org/10.1179/peq.1920.52.2.82

P.013

Mr James Donaldson