Archeologists from the
Jerusalem-based Temple Mount Sifting Project are confident that they
have successfully restored a unique architectural element of the Second
Temple. Namely, a series of regally decorated floor tiles that adorned
the porticos atop the Temple Mount, and which likely featured
prominently in the courtyards of the Second Temple during the period
that King Herod ruled (37 to 4 BCE) in Jerusalem. Frankie Snyder, a member of the
Temple Mount Sifting Project's team of researchers and an expert in the
study of ancient Herodian style flooring, succeeded in restoring the
ornate tile patterns “using geometric principles, and through
similarities found in tile design used by Herod at other sites,” said
Snyder, who has an academic background in mathematics and Judaic
Studies. "This type of flooring, called 'opus sectile,’ Latin for ‘cut
work,’ is very expensive and was considered to be far more prestigious
than mosaic tiled floors. So far, we have succeeded in
restoring seven potential designs of the majestic flooring that
decorated the buildings of the Temple Mount," said Snyder, explaining
that there were no opus sectile floors in Israel prior to the time of
King Herod. “The tile segments were perfectly inlaid such that one could
not even insert a sharp blade between them." To date, approximately 600 colored
stone floor tile segments have been uncovered, with more than 100 of
them definitively dated to the Herodian Second Temple period. This style
of flooring is consistent with those found in Herod's palaces at
Masada, Herodian, and Jericho among others, as well as in majestic
palaces and villas in Italy, also attributed to the time of Herod. The
tile segments, mostly imported from Rome, Asia Minor, Tunisia and
Egypt, were created from polished multicolored stones cut in a variety
of geometric shapes. A key characteristic of the Herodian tiles is their size, which corresponds to the Roman foot, approximately 29.6 cm.
