A mosaic depicting a pair of flip-flops was discovered at Villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Armerina in Sicily, adding their modest charm to the iconic Roman mosaics found there previously, including the famous “Bikini Girls” mosaic featuring sportswomen working out wearing bandeau tops and bikini briefs and the action-packed Great Hunt depicting the capture and shipping of exotic animals.
The sandal mosaics were found in the Southern Baths of the villa. The panel is adjacent to a multi-colored pattern of squares and a mosaic inscription of white text against a red background. Mosaic bands decorating the top of a bathing pool were also found. In non-mosaic discoveries, three large columns with their capitals were found. While the sandals and inscription may seem simple compared to the complex masterpieces found elsewhere in the villa, in fact they were parts of a much more elaborate whole and made by a 4th century artist with a high level of skill.
Some of the news articles about this find imply the sandals were an unexpected surprise, that sandals that look so much like modern flip-flops have not been seen before in Roman artwork from this period, that the discovery transforms our understanding of fashion footwear in Roman Sicily. None of that is true. Sandals were a common motif in bath mosaics, because Romans loved a theme show and people wore thong sandals in the baths just like they wear them in the locker room showers today. The public bathhouse in Timgad, 
Algeria, had two pairs of sandals under the inscription “Bene lava” (meaning “wash well”). Pairs of sandals are often found in mosaics together with strigils and hanging oil vessels, all part of the Roman workout experience as athletes would oil their dirty bodies and scrape off the sludge with strigils before bathing. A mosaic in the Sabratha Museum in Libya features a pair of sandals, two strigils and oil vessel under the inscription “Salvom Lavisse” (“It is healthy to have bathed”).
The new mosaic finds at the Villa Romana del Casale were made in the fourth annual international Summer School of ARCHLabs (Archaeological Heritage in Late Antique and Byzantine Sicily, a field school in archeology that draws in more than 40 students and archaeologists from 11 countries participate in hands-on learning about excavation methods, digital documentation and the examination and study of the finds.
The mosaics will now be cleaned and consolidated to make them ready for permanent exhibition. Meanwhile, ARCHLabs researchers will be analyzing the recovered materials and add their scan data to a comprehensive 3D model of the villa.
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