Roman Mosaics

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www.romanmosaicworkshops.co.uk 2 Willcox Avenue

romanmosaicworkshops@gmail.com Bury St Edmunds, IP33 3HQ

+44 (0)7444 708 235

Roman Mosaics  Children's Worksheets

Thank you for requesting these free worksheets. They are designed to give

children (7 - 11 years) a brief insight into Roman floor mosaics and the

craftspeople who made them. They can learn about working as a team, how

the patterns were put together and what was in them.

You have permission to keep these and reprint them as many times as you

like for use within your school or museum. If it is easier then you can scan

them and retain them as digital files.

If you would like the full Teachers Pack which includes more geometric

patterns, full size patterns for fish, birds etc then this can be purchased for

£14.97 from the website. Click on 'Teachers' or 'Museum Staff' on the

website.

If you are in the UK then I also have small kits (10cm x 10cm) that have

everything you need except glue, no cutting required, (trade prices on

request).

Kind regards

Lawrence Payne
 Roman Mosaics
What is a mosaic?
A Roman mosaic is a picture made up of pieces of stone, roof tiles or glass which
were cut into small cubes and they were called tesserae. The tesserae were usually
8mm – 12mm (about 3/8”) cubes
A brief history
In the 5th century BCE the Greeks started making mosaic floors using pebbles, then lay out the pattern of the mosaic.
in the 3rd century BCE they started using cut stone as well. Soon they stopped using
pebbles completely as cutting stone was quicker than looking for all the right size
and colour of pebbles. The Romans liked them so much they started copying them
and having a mosaic in your villa became popular all over the Roman Empire.
Where were they?
They weren't just in the villas of the rich, you could see them in the public bath
houses and there are even some that were on the pavement outside offices and they
were used like shop signs.
What were the pictures of?
The mosaics had many different pictures, some were of gladiators, chariots and
race horses, musicians and dancers. They had scenes from Greek and Roman
myths, pictures of wild animals, birds and sea creatures, even a mosaic of food left
on a floor after a meal. Some mosaics had plaits (known as guilloche) around the
outside and some mosaics were complex patterns covering the whole floor, these
were known as geometric patterns (geometry is a type of maths).
Geometric pattern
Geometric border
How did they make them?
They would have slaves cut up the stone into the tesserae using a special hammer
and chisel, this would be a long and boring job! Imagine an area of floor which is
100cm x 100cm (3' x 3'), in a square this size you would need about 8,000 to
10,000 tesserae.
First they made the floor very flat and smooth and then they used different ways to
1. They could put a layer of wet cement down and paint lines on the cement
and then push the tesserae in, this method was called sinopia.
2. Another way was to scratch lines on the dry surface of the floor using
something sharp. Then they would put a little bit of cement down at a time
and press the tesserae into this.
3. It is possible that some pictures or patterns were done without setting out
any pattern as they would have been doing this for so many years that they
could do some just by memory.
After they had set all the tesserae down they would grout them, this means using a
loose mixture to fill in the gaps. They would also need to rub the surface with
grinding stones, these are special types of stones which make the top smooth.
Finally, we think they rubbed some type of wax over the floor to make the colours
really bright.
What happened to the mosaics after the fall of the
Roman Empire?
The villas and other buildings gradually fell down and a lot of the mosaics, because
they were made mostly of hard stones survived until they were rediscovered. Now,
we can tell a lot about what people wore, what they ate and many other things
because of these pictures in stone.
www.romanmosaicworkshops.co.uk ©Lawrence Payne 2016
 Roman Mosaics - The Eight Rules
The Roman mosaicists had a set of rules which they had to follow when they set the
tesserae (mosaic tiles) in the mosaics. They were used to make the mosaic nicer to look at,
they did not want anyone part of the mosaic to stand out. There were eight of the rules and
the easiest one for you to see is the Borderline Rule.

The Borderline Rule

Can you see the line of white tesserae

around this figure’s arm? The way it is
used makes the outline of the figure ‘soft’
and you will see this Borderline in every
figure in a Roman mosaic.

​ See if you can see them in other figures.

They also used this rule in geometric mosaics. Look at the drawings of the triangle shapes
below and notice the difference.

The one on the left is wrong as it does not have a borderline. The one on the right has been
done properly. Can you see that the one on the right has a borderline of white tesserae
around the outside of the shape and it​ also​ has one of black tesserae making the shape and
then it has been just filled in with horizontal lines of tesserae.

​✕ ✓

www.romanmosaicworkshops.co.uk
©Lawrence Payne 2014
 The Rules - Teachers Notes

The eight Rules can be seen in all Roman mosaics, sometimes due to the
standard of work ones such as the Borderline can be difficult to see but they are
always there. The application of these Rules spread all across the Roman world
and are in the mosaics from Britannia to Africa.

The point about the Borderline Rule making the lines soft is explained below;

As a horizontal line of tesserae hits the diagonal

line where the colour changes you need to cut
triangular pieces to finish the line.
You always try to avoid triangles in a line as they
create, artistically speaking, a sharp line. Where
there are no triangle cuts needed such as on
vertical sections the the line is ‘soft’. Where
these triangles are seen next to a figure the ‘flow’
is lost by having this sharp/soft/sharp/soft
outline, hence the use of the Borderline Rule.

You can see the sharp and soft lines in the example of the above, creating a very
discordant image.

On the left, the line becomes much softer and

more pleasing to the eye. This example shows
how the Borderline Rule pulls the sharp line of
white triangle shapes away from the colour
change to the black area tesserae. And the
black section has the same.

How did they ensure everyone used them? We

don’t know but you see this in all mosaics
across the Roman world.

www.romanmosaicworkshops.co.uk
© Lawrence Payne 2019