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Archaeology Museum of Catalonia - Empúries

Mosaic depicting the Sacrifice of Iphigenia

Front view of the Roman mosaic depicting the Sacrifice of Iphigenia, c. 1st century BC. Archaeology Museum of Catalonia, Empúries.

Front view of the Roman mosaic depicting the Sacrifice of Iphigenia, c. 1st century BC. Archaeology Museum of Catalonia, Empúries.

Emblema of the mosaic found in 1849 in a house in the Roman city which has not yet been excavated. It used to decorate the central part of one of the halls used for banquets (triclini). Made up of very small tesellae (opus vermiculatum) which yield detailed figurative images, it was crafted in a studio in the eastern Mediterranean. It can be dated from around the 1st century BC and reproduces a Greek painting from the 4th century BC which depicted the theatrical enactment of the myth of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, based on Euripides’ tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis.

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