The Beauty of Durrës
| The Beauty of Durrës | |
|---|---|
| Albanian: Bukuroshja e Durrësit | |
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| Year | 4th century BC |
| Type | mosaic |
| Dimensions | 510 cm × 300 cm (200 in × 120 in) |
| Location | National Historical Museum, Tirana, Albania |
The Beauty of Durrës (also called The Beautiful Maiden of Durrës or The Belle of Durrës) is a polychromatic mosaic of the 4th century BC and is the most ancient and important mosaic discovered in Albania. The 9 m2 (97 sq ft) mosaic is elliptical in shape and depicts a woman’s head on a black background, surrounded by flowers and other floral elements. It was discovered in 1916 in Durrës, and since 1982 has been on display at the National Historical Museum of Albania in Tirana.
The mosaic was created in the second half of 4th century BC in Durrës, then known as Epidamnos, to serve as the decorative floor of a private and luxurious restroom. The mosaic was discovered in 1916, in the middle of the First World War, when Durrës was occupied by the forces of Austria-Hungary. During works by the Austro-Hungarian army to construct fortifications, the military engineers ran into this mosaic, which was unearthed 3.80 m (12.5 ft) deep in the foundations of a house in the “Varosh” quarter, very close to the present-day city centre of Durrës city. The Austrian archaeologist Camillo Praschniker took care of the mosaic, so that it could be well preserved. In his book Archaeological research in Albania and Montenegro (German: Archäologische Forschungen in Albanien und Montenegro), published in Vienna in 1919 together with A. Schober, Praschniker was the first to include a picture of the mosaic and he described it as a figurative masterpiece.
Eventually, after the end of the war, The Beauty of Durrës was covered up and lost to view, only to be rediscovered in 1947 by an archaeologist from Durrës, Vangjel Toçi. It became widely known to the world of art history only after 1959.
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Wikipedia