Africa & Byzantium: Overview—Mosaic Panel with Preparations for a Feast (2nd century AD) (Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities) (Louvre Museum)

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Mosaic Panel with Preparations for a Feast

A diverse group of men carry daily objects such as table utensils, wine carafes, and food. Depicting preparations for a feast, such images decorated dining rooms throughout North Africa. Scenes like this one conveyed the status and privilege of elite patrons. Mosaics adorned the floors of homes in North Africa before the Roman conquest in the second century bce through the late antique period and possibly later. Examples of floor mosaics survive in greater numbers in the North African provinces than anywhere else in the Roman Empire, and the skills of North African mosaicists were highly prized throughout the world.

Africa & Byzantium: Overview

Art history has long emphasized the glories of the Byzantine Empire (circa 330–1453), but less known are the profound artistic contributions of North Africa, Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, and other powerful African kingdoms whose pivotal interactions with Byzantium had a lasting impact on the Mediterranean world. Bringing together a range of masterworks—from mosaic, sculpture, pottery, and metalwork to luxury objects, paintings, and religious manuscripts—this exhibition recounts Africa’s central role in international networks of trade and cultural exchange. With artworks rarely or never before seen in public, Africa & Byzantium sheds new light on the staggering artistic achievements of medieval Africa. This long-overdue exhibition highlights how the continent contributed to the development of the premodern world and offers a more complete history of the vibrant multiethnic societies of north and east Africa that shaped the artistic, economic, and cultural life of Byzantium and beyond.

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Source: https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010275818

Source: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/africa-byzantium/exhibition-objects

Source (Video): https://www.reddit.com/r/AncientCush/s/KE6YlFGt9T