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Excavation & location
What was found
The mosaic materials
Patterns and designs
Other finds

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The discovery: The mosaic materials

The mosaic is made from small cubes of natural stone and terracotta possibly cut from tile or brick. Each of these small cubes is called a tessera (several tesserae) from the latin word for dice.

Diagram of the mosaic pavement cross-section The tesserae were laid on a surface layer of fine mortar that was applied freshly for each days work. Below that was a layer containing terracotta, nucleus. This rested on a coarser layer of well compacted mortar, rudus, which in turn lay on a layer of compacted rubble, statumen.

Lime mortar becomes harder more quickly with the addition of terracotta and was called opus signinum, from the Italian city of Sigma were it is thought to have been developed.

Section diagram showing how the layers were built up to support pavements and possibly this one.

Colours used in the mosaic and their origins ( 12 )

Red tesserae piece Red
Terracotta probably cut from roof tile or brick.
Blue lias tesserae piece Blue lias   Dark blue grey to very light grey/white
The tessera and stone tiles are identical to the lower strata beds from the now worked–out Station Quarry at Charlton Mackerell in Somerset. This would have been formed from limy mud deposits in non-turbulent seas. Blue lias can also be seen at Kilve on the coast in north Somerset, and Lyme Regis on the Dorset coast.
Bright white tesserae piece Bright white
Possibly a very light Blue Lias or the much harder geologically compressed chalk from the Purbeck Ridge in Dorset.
Yellow-brown stone piece Yellow-brown
Sandy limestone but with iron giving the browner colour. Inferior Oolite (Jurassic, appears to contain little egg shapes) as found at Seavington St. Mary quarry, 3 kms to north west of the villa.
Golden sandy/pale yellow stone piece Sandy or pale yellow
Sandy limestone. Inferior Oolite also found at Seavington St. Mary.
Golden stone piece Golden
Ham Hill Stone. Sandy limestone containing shell fragments. Ham Hill by Stoke under Ham can be seen to the east from the villa site.
Mortar piece Mortar
It contains smooth, well-rounded, very coarse white, translucent sand grains probably derived from the Upper Greensand. The mortar contains a lot of angular, small flint chips. Possibly ‘sweepings’ or sievings or broken with a hammer?

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