ARCE

General view of site at the beginning of work

Description:
General view of site at the beginning of work
Photographer:
Image capture by Robert Vincent
Date Created:
June 16, 1998
Collection:
Villa of the Birds Mosaic Conservation
Series:
Conservation work in progress
Subseries:
Late Roman Buildings
Location:
Alexandria, Egypt and Al Iskandarīyah
Time Period:
Byzantine Period
Topic:
Ruins, Extinct cities, and Domestic architecture
Genre:
color photographs and general views
Conservation Note:
The need to uncover surviving mosaics of the house alpha, as well as overall plan of the mosaic exhibition required the removal of both some of these low-surviving Late Roman walls and fragments reconstructed in the seventies
Copyright Status:
copyrighted
Creative Commons License:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
Local ID:
arce_ca_vob_images_0606.tif
Project History:
At the heart of modern Alexandria in Kom el-Dikka lies an exceptional demonstration of Domestic architecture during the Roman Imperial period. The Early Roman villa named “Villa of the Birds” houses exceptionally well preserved mosaic floors, made of tesserae. True to its name, it contains Mosaic a-5 which depicts different bird species within seven different panels. Under the auspices of the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), Dr. Wojciech Kolataj and his team conserved the mosaic floors, constructed a shelter, and landscaped the surrounding area. Some related supplemental work was carried out by the Polish-Egyptian Preservation Mission, and sponsored jointly by the Supreme Council of Antiquities (currently the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities) and the Polish Center of Archaeology. Conservation work was made possible with the support of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (formerly the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities).
Funding Agency:
Villa of the Birds Mosaic Conservation project was made possible with funding by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Grant No. 263-G-00-93-00089-00 (formerly 263-0000-G-00-3089-00) and administered by the Egyptian Antiquities Project (EAP) of the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE).