An intricate mosaic with a kaleidoscopic variety of patterns, colors and figures, one of them the personification of a lake wearing crab claw hairclips, has been unearthed in the city of Iznik, Turkey. The style of the mosaic and ceramics and coins found in the excavation layer date it to 3rd century.
The mosaic was first spotted 11 years ago during sewer construction. Workers uncovered a small piece of a face composed of colorful tiles, but they covered it up for its protection and stopped construction in the area. Because the mosaic extended under the road and private property, a decade of legal entanglements over expropriation procedures and permits ensued, until in 2024 the İznik Museum Directorate finally returned to the find site and began a full-scale excavation of the expropriated area.
The year’s excavation uncovered the entire mosaic floor 50 square meters (538 square feet) within the designation area. The team also unearthed the lower walls and the remains of the upper layers of the ancient building. The walls had once been covered with frescoes and the floors inlaid with marble, but most of them were damaged over the centuries or taken and reused.
The mosaic, on the other hand, is virtually intact. It is divided into three main panels, underlined by a white border with red pomegranate and ivy leaves. Two pairs of sandals point in different directions between the pomegranate row and the wall.
The left panel is centered around a female figure with a basket of agricultural produce (pomegranates, grapes, wheat) with two small figures reclining above each shoulder. She is being represented as a goddess of the harvest, and the ΓΗ label above her head indicates she’s the goddess of the Earth, Gaia. There are abbreviated labels above the small figures too, but they have not yet been fully deciphered.
She is set in an octagonal panel, and each side of it has a square with a different geometric pattern, including guilloche knots, meanders, checkerboards, harlequin, 3D cubes, wheels and more. Between the square panels are triangular and diamond shaped ones, filling in the space and sometimes creating a cubed effect.
The central panel contains five more octagons with female figures, all bounded by guilloche knots.
[Archaeologist Yusuf Kahveci] highlighted the central figure: “We can read the name Askania beside the central figure. This was the Roman-era name of Lake Iznik. The mosaic depicts the lake.”
“The figure is associated with water, with hair rendered in algae-like detail, a crown made of crab claws and waves illustrated around her neck. In other words, Lake Iznik is personified as an ancient woman,” he added.
Personified bodies of water were popular in Greco-Roman art, but this example is unusual for referring specifically to a local lake and for the unusual iconography of crab claws as hairclips.
The third section of the mosaic is a patchwork of complex geometric patterns in square, diamond and triangular panels.
So far, almost 3800 square feet of this Roman-era building have been revealed, but archaeologists believe that more of the mosaic floor survives beyond the currently exposed borders. The sandals placed near a threshold suggests it is an entrance to a grand interior space that was built over by modern streets and buildings.
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