Abstract:

A great number of emblemata, made up in opus vermiculatum, has been found in some sites of Northern, Southern and Central Italy, dated between the second half of the II and the first half of the I century b. C. and attributed by the previous scientific literature to Alexandrian circles.
The localisation of their production area has been a subject of debate for several years, as these mosaics are made up on mobile trays and could have been assembled in ateliers located even at considerable distance from to the place of finding.
This paper will consider mosaics from Campania, mostly located in Pompei, and will analyse their technical features, which have not been systematically studied in previous works.
They will be compared with the characteristics of the emblemata found in Alexandria of Egypt and in Delo, known through the available scientific literature, where the common technical characteristics of Alexandrian style mosaics have been delineated.
In particular it has been already observed that Egyptian craftsmen used, besides stone tesserae, also coloured opaque glass and faience tesserae. Faience can be indeed considered one of the peculiarities of Alexandria style mosaics, because it was a typical Egyptian material, not produced in any other Mediterranean area.
After a catalogue work, in the present work it has been possible to highlight the common characteristics of the Campanian emblemata vermiculata. Both similarities and differences with the mosaics from Alexandria and Delo have been noticed. In particular, like in the Egyptian examples opaque coloured glass and faiance tesserae are employed, but the trays are made of travertino marble, which is a local stone.
The coexistence of local and, we believe, imported materials and the presence of some differences besides the common characteristics with AlexandriaÕs and DeloÕs mosaics make us suppose that the Campanian areaÕs mosaics were produced by local craftsmen, trained by Egyptian mosaicists.
In order to answer to this question, if would be necessary to conduct a more complete study, including archaeometrycal analyses, allowing a more precise knowledge of the nature of the materials constituting the mosaics.