In 2013 a community excavation directed by archaeologists Sa’ar Ganor and Dr. Rina Avner was conducted in the Qiryat Gat Industrial Park. Among the finds uncovered in the excavation were the remains of a unique mosaic floor belonging to a church dating to the sixth century CE. The mosaic was conserved by the Art Conservation Unit of the Conservation Department in the Israel Antiquities Authority. The work included accompanying the team of archaeologists in order to prevent damage to the mosaic during the excavation and the subsequent conservation measures upon completion of the dig.
The uniqueness and excellent quality of the mosaic are manifested by the size of the tesserae, their colors and the images they depict. The stones are tiny, measuring 8 ª 8 mm or less, and occur in seventeen different shades. The mosaic floor resembles a kind of ancient map, portraying buildings located along a main colonnaded street of a city. A Greek inscription preserved alongside one of the buildings indicates that the place depicted is the settlement Khortaso, in Egypt. According to Christian tradition, this is the burial place of the prophet Habakkuk. This description might indicate the origin of the residents of the place at that time.
State of Preservation
Over the centuries the site was destroyed and most of the mosaic floor was lost; however, two sections of it have survived. In one part animals are portrayed, including a rooster, a doe and birds, as well as a special goblet containing red fruit. In the second part an Egyptian Nile scene is depicted that includes a boat with a rolled sail, streets and buildings. The buildings, two to three stories high, are portrayed in three-dimension and have balconies and galleries, roofs, roof tiles and windows.
The sections of the mosaic floor that survived were damaged in many places. Later pits that were dug in the floor of the building caused the floor foundation to erode resulting in extensive deformation of the pavement.
Removal and Conservation of the Mosaic
Due to the poor preservation of the site and its current location in the industrial park, it was decided at the end of the excavation to remove the mosaic from its original place and display it elsewhere.
The removal of the pavement involved a series of interventions, some of which were performed at the original site, some at the mosaic workshop and some at the new site. A number of steps were taken that included: 1) cleaning all of the parts of the mosaic; 2) gluing the parts of the mosaic so that they would not fall apart during the removal phase; 3) detaching the mosaic from the foundation layer; 4) transferring the pavement for further treatment to the mosaic workshop of the Israel Antiquities Authority in the Rockefeller Museum. The conservation measures carried out in the workshop included: cleaning the remnants of foundation mortar from the underside of the mosaic and casting a new underside for the mosaic. Upon completion of the conservation work the parts of the pavement were transferred to the new site and were positioned for display in the industrial park, several hundred meters from the mosaic’s original location. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Shmuel Freireich, February 2016
