L’iconographie des mosaïques hellénistiques de Chypre

Abstract

Three figured mosaic pavements of the Hellenistic period have been found on the island of Cyprus. These are a floor that was discovered under the House of Dionysos at Nea Paphos, a mosaic made of large pebbles overlying a tomb at Kourion, and a second pavement in Paphos, dexposed in 1996 on Fabrika Hill, it too, in all probability, connected with a tomb. The iconography of all three pavements has a marine character, something that one must attempt to explain not – or, not only – as due to the insular nature of Cyprus, but through an examination of the panels within the iconographic context of Hellenistic pavements. These three mosaics were destined for spaces used for banqueting : in the andron of a house in Paphos, or in structures destined for the commemoration of the dead (heroa) at Kourion, as also, without doubt, on the hill of Fabrika. In this paper, an attempt will be made to show how these representations are related to the world of Dionysos. God of wine, of banqueting, of the joy of life and in this respect of the Greek house, Dionysos is also associated with the dead, and he frequently appears in funerary iconography.