RELIGIONS AND FIGURATVE REPRESENTATION

The mosaics' documentary value is significant. Their content corroborates and enlarges on the literary sources. To be sure the craftsmen who authored those works did not seek to be historically factual. They aimed to fulfil a commission and meet the wishes of the client whilst making the best of their artistic gifts. The patrons chose the subjects according to their taste, their feelings and, in this instance, their religion. Greek culture had a lasting influence on the elites as it did wherever tradesmen, craftsmen, soldiers, slaves or scholars hailing from the Greek cities set foot.

Carthage was built at the juncture of the two Mediterranean basins. The city – whose economic success and military might made it a force to be reckoned with in the ancient world – was crushed by Rome at the term of the Punic Wars^[1]. It was re-founded upon Augustus'^[2] decision in 29 BCE on its original site dominated by the hill of Byrsa. Cherchell is one of the most important ancient cities in the region. Founded in the 4th century BCE by Phoenicians from Carthage who named it Iol after one of their gods, it fell to the kingdom of Numidia after the fall of Jugurtha^[3] in 105 BCE. The city was re-founded in 25 BCE by Juba II^[4] who had received a Roman education and renamed it Caesarea in honour of the emperor. As capital of Mauretania Caesariensis, it grew into a large harbour, which established trading posts as far as the Atlantic coast. Architects, mosaicists, painters and sculptors converged on the city to answer the call of the monarch who fancied himself as a Maecenas. Oudna is the current name of Punic Uthina, which, according to Pliny the Elder, became a Roman colony under Emperor Augustus; it reached its peak under the Antonines^[5] and the Severans^[6].

In the 2nd century the African workshops mostly imitated Italian models, which were themselves in thrall to Alexandria's Hellenistic tradition. The mosaics from these schools are characterised by a polychrome version of the Italian “floral style”. Such was the way Roman colonists, like Romanised Africans, aimed to immortalize gifts and offering connected to the gods closest to them. A consequence highlighted by specialists is the side lining of or disregard for the distinctive features of Libyan or Punic local mosaicists' craft. It was first and foremost an official art wherein the craftsmen could only rarely break free from the fashionable mythological and almost exclusively Greco-Roman pantheon. However, from the Severan period onwards, everyday life themes drawn from the very activities of this African land grew more visible with representations of hunting scenes featuring locally specific pursuits, agrarian work, trading activity in the ports and major market cities. This figurative imagery continued to express bye and bye their patrons' formal worship, including towards ancient Berber kings or Baal Hamon^[7]. This period is characterised by the reproduction of what was done elsewhere but with the addition of some local specificity. The crane remained, according to archaeological and historical findings, the archetypal illustration of ritual sacrifices associated to the goddess Diana and her brother Apollo.