Did this mosaic belong to a pavement illustrating the Garden of Eden?
This mosaic may be from a church at Maaut El Naaman in northern Syria. The panel depicting Adam and Eve includes a Greek inscription that translates as: And they ate, [and they] were made naked, taken from the book of Genesis (III: 7-8).
Mosaics were made as either floor or wall coverings that could easily be washed and cleaned. Mosaics were assembled from thousands of tesserae (small pieces of marble) to create elaborate designs and pictures. Unlike fresco or wall painting, the mosaic art provided a medium of long-lasting beauty whose colors did not fade. The Romans practiced the art of mosaic as early as the 1st century BC. However, Byzantine artists used mosaic as a true painting medium with brilliant colors visible from great distances. Mosaics were adapted for walls using glass, ceramic, and gilded tesserae to stunning effect. The floors of fifth-century Early Byzantine churches in northern Syria often included scenes involving large numbers of birds and animals with geometric borders, and less frequently, human figures such as this example.
