THREE important mosaics at Alexandria's Graeco-Roman Museum have been restored and put on display, reports Nevine El-Aref. Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) Secretary-General Zahi Hawass and Kenneth Ellis, the director of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in Egypt, along with an invited audience of archaeologists and journalists, attended the unveiling of the newly restored mosaics in the main hall of downtown Alexandria's Graeco-Roman Museum last week. The three huge, coloured mosaics featuring Roman mythological scenes, dating back to the third century BC, were discovered early in the 20th century in Alexandria, and at Tell Timai in the Delta town of Mansoura. The first features three Erotes (winged children representing gods of love) hunting a stag. The surrounding border is decorated with a vivid depiction of real and mythological animals. The second is a portrait of Queen Berenice II, wife of Ptolemy III, represented in military attire. The queen is wearing a crown shaped like the prow of a ship, and a gold necklace. The third mosaic depicts a Roman love story, showing a river and a lagoon in the shape of a man and a woman. "This really is a wonderful work of restoration. It has brought back the original splendour of these three distinguished mosaics," Hawass said. Robert K Vincent, director of the Egyptian Antiquities Development Project at the American Research Centre in Egypt (ARCE), called the hunting scene a very fine mosaic, comparable in quality to the best in Greece. The museum's director, Mervat Seifeddin, said details in the crown and dress of the Queen Berenice mosaic reflected the skill of the artisans who produced it. "It was probably produced in a royal workshop," she said. The restoration was carried out by ARCE in collaboration with the SCA using LE565,600 in funding provided by USAID. Jaroslaw Dobrowolski, the project's technical director at ARCE, told Al-Ahram Weekly that the objective of the restoration was to preserve and protect the existing originals, without getting involved in any reconstruction work. "The surfaces of the three mosaics were therefore thoroughly cleaned and consolidated where necessary, while the missing parts were filled in with mortar of an unobtrusive colour," he said. The mosaics had been stored in poor conditions, and had been badly restored in the 1960s. After careful removal of modern cement from the back, the mosaics were replaced on lime-based mortar similar to that used in the olden days. These were then placed over rigid, lightweight panels of aluminum and fiberglass known as aerolam, which is a product used in aircraft construction. "The hunting mosaic was the most complicated piece being restored," said Amira Abu Bakr, director general of restoration in Alexandria. She told the Weekly that because the mosaic measured 5.23 by 3.94 metres, restorers had to divide it into 22 separate pieces in order to work on it. Few Roman antiquities have survived in Egypt. Most of the period's settlement sites were swept under the plough, or covered with layers of alluvial soil, in the centuries following the decline and depopulation of Roman communities.
