Ravenna: Domus dei Tappeti di Pietra

It was just after 10:15a when we arrived at the entrance to Santa Eufemia … the central structure of which was built in the 18th century over an ancient early Christian temple. Tradition would have us believe this was where the first worship place in Ravenna was founded by Saint Apollinaris.

That may well be the case.

But we were at the church for a non-religious reason. You see, one must go through Santa Eufemia in order to visit the “House of the Stone Carpets” in the basement.

Our timed-admission wasn’t until 11:00a, but we decided to try our luck and see if we could gain entrance earlier. Sure enough … the guy at the desk barely looked at our tickets before giving us the nod.

Though there is no mention of this archeological site in guidebooks — at least the ones I browsed in preparation for our trip to Ravenna — the domus is considered one of “…Italy’s most important archaeological sites discovered in the last decades.”

Turns out that a complex of buildings dating back to between the 1st and 6th century were unearthed during excavations for a parking lot. Amongst them was a 14-room Byzantine structure — a so-called palace or at least the home of a very rich family. Findings also included other residences, a thermal plant, and a necropolis … the latter probably connected to the church.

Today, walking along a raised walkway in the church basement, one sees restored mosaic and marble floors in situ. All the rooms — though there are no walls — were paved with marble inlays or polychromatic tesserae with geometric and floral patterns … some with figured insets.

The most important of the figured insets is the one in what is thought to have been the banquet hall. It is a mosaic representation of the seasons entitled the “Dance of the Seasons,” which shows four figures (one of them is all but missing) dancing to the music of panpipes. The original inset has been removed from the flooring for ease of viewing. (A copy was placed where it would have been in the floor.)

Another important inset is entitled “The Good Shepherd” … dating back to the 4th century. One of the information panels identified it as being in room 18, which is not on the floor plan for the domus, but there was a copy of it for visitors to at least see what it looks like.

Admittedly, we’ve seen far more impressive floor mosaics during our travels. The Hellenistic and Roman ones at the Zeugma Mosaic Museum in Gaziantep, Türkiye, for example, feature elaborate scenes from mythology.

That’s not to say that we were disappointed with Ravenna’s Tappetti di Pietra. We weren’t. It is always fascinating to me how artisans put together complex geometric designs so precisely with the tools they had at hand in ancient times.Leggi altro