Roman Mosaic Floor for Butser Ancient Farm, Hampshire, UK

Butser Ancient Farm is a wonderful open-air experimental archaeology museum and active research centre, as well as being home to a reconstructed Roman villa. I was part of the joint team of King’s College London (KCL) and London School of Mosaic (LSoM) working on the reconstruction of the mosaic floor in 2022. The project was led by Giulia Vogrig, Lecturer in Mosaic Practice at LSoM, and Dr Will Wootton, Head of the Department of Classics at KCL.

For this experimental project, we tried to imitate the entire manufacturing procedure for a floor of this type. The team lived together in period accommodation for ten days, and all work was carried out on site. Adopting the mindset and methods of the times in which the piece was originally created proved to be an immersive and enlightening way to understand ancient mosaics.