The Neptune Triumph and the House of Sorothus mosaic, also known as the Neptune and Nereids mosaic or the Neptune Procession mosaic, is a Roman mosaic dating from the 1st or 2nd century, discovered in Tunisia at the end of the 19th century, in the House of Sorothus on the site of Sousse, the ancient Hadrumetus.
The Neptune mosaic is housed in the Bardo National Museum where its size and state of preservation make it one of the museum's masterpieces. When the museum was extended in early 2010, it was moved from the Sousse room, where it had previously been displayed on the floor, to a new space now displayed vertically.
The partially excavated site of the House of Sorothus has also yielded other mosaic works that provide valuable insights into the building's historical and social context; these artifacts are distributed between a room in the Sousse barracks, the Sousse Archaeological Museum and the Bardo National Museum. Some works were destroyed or damaged during the fighting of the Second World War, in particular the bombardment of the Sousse citadel by Allied forces in 1943. Fragments of works thought to have been lost were rediscovered during research carried out in the reserves by a Tunisian mosaic specialist in the 1980s, and some were able to be presented to the public again, notably after the restructuring of the Sousse archaeological museum in the 2010s.
History and location
Discovery
Incidental discovery
The mosaic, along with part of the house, was unearthed in 1886–1887 by soldiers led by General Bertrand, "commandant de la subdivision de Sousse", when they dug a sump in the regiment's garden occupied by an olive grove. No coins or inscriptions were found during the excavations carried out by the soldiers, who also uncovered Punic tombs. This was therefore a purely fortuitous discovery.
The mosaics in the House of Sorothus were all buried between 1 m and 1.80 m below ground level. Some walls were still almost 2 m high.
Gustave Hannezo's excavations
The site was restored in 1888, and new excavations were carried out by Gustave Hannezo to further identify the House of Sorothus, uncovering other mosaics that remain in Sousse. Hannezo completed the excavation, then published articles on the mosaics of the house, as did Dr. Carton in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He published a "rather clumsy" plan of the building after the excavation in 1896.
In the inner garden, Hannezo found fragments of lamps and ceramics as coins. The archaeological material is indeed "very small". Bronze and silver coins bear the effigies of Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus the Pious, Faustina the Younger, Heliogabalus, Severus Alexander, Julia Mamaea, and Philip the Arab. A gold intaglio depicting Jupiter with a thunderbolt and sceptre and a Greek inscription were also uncovered.
Jean-Pierre Laporte and Henri Savagne pointed out in 2006 that "a large part of the walls [...] must still exist", as must many of the mosaic pavements, and that a stratigraphic study might still be possible for further on-site research.
Ancient history
The riflemen's barracks were located near the present-day Bab El Gharbi and Bab El Finga, two gateways to the medina of Sousse, an area occupied during the Roman Empire by wealthy houses that have yielded mosaics such as those of the Arsenal, Virgil and the rape of Augè by Heracles.
Mosaic depicting a man in a toga holding a scroll with writing, surrounded by two female figures, one holding a scroll and the other a theatrical mask.
Virgil mosaic dated to the 2nd century by Mohamed Yacoub.
The dating of the Neptune mosaic has varied in historiography. René du Coudray de La Blanchère dates the building after the Byzantine period, with the evacuation at the time of the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb. According to Mohamed Yacoub, it dates from the end of the 1st century or the 2nd century, more precisely from the second half of the 1st century or the beginning of the following century. It pre-dates 161–169, the reign of Lucius Aurelius Verus, the emperor who replaced the palm tree with a modius filled with gold coins as a symbol of victory. It was found in the œcus of a rich shipowner's or horse breeder's residence. The house also yielded a mosaic depicting the owner's estate and his horses and another depicting a panther.
The residence was abandoned before the building collapsed and was then covered by landslides. The site was later reused by a building, of which two rooms to the north and west have been reported, and also by late Roman burials. It was eventually converted into an olive grove. The mosaics were damaged by "the settling [of] backfill since antiquity" and the roots of olive trees.
Conservation issues
The works found in the house of Sorothus are distributed between different conservation sites. The Neptune Triumph mosaic is one of the main pieces on display at the Musée national du Bardo.
Works conserved at the Musée national du Bardo
View of a palace room with a rich gilded ceiling and a large chandelier, featuring mosaics and visitors in the background.
View of the Sousse room in the early 2000s, with the Neptune mosaic on the floor.
René du Coudray de La Blanchère had the large mosaic of Neptune assigned to the brand-new Musée Alaoui, the future Musée du Bardo, which was carefully transported in several crates and then loaded onto a French cruiser, the D'Estrées. The dismantling, which began on March 7, 1887, preceded the loading onto the ship, which was completed on June 28. The surface area of the mosaic-covered room and the journey involved made removal and transport difficult. Each medallion was removed in turn, and slabs were made up. The crates use a Decauville railway line to reach the port and La Goulette. The set reaches Le Bardo by train. The mosaic is extensively restored prior to its exhibition, as is another work, the panther.
Once restored, the Neptune Triumph mosaic was installed by René du Coudray de La Blanchère in "the largest room in the Bardo".
Works entrusted to the Sousse Tirailleurs Museum and consequences of the 1943 bombardment
The hall of honor of the 4th regiment of Tunisian riflemen, in the kasbah of Sousse, was granted the right to keep the mosaic of a panther and that of the Sorothus horses by ministerial decree of January 29, 1887. The space was then a "sort of museum" containing, in addition to antique works, weapons and portraits of soldiers.
The regiment's hall of honor was destroyed in 1943 by American bombing raids on the town of Sousse: statuettes and a mosaic of the Seasons were lost, and only a few fragments of the Sorothus stud mosaic escaped the disaster, although they remained lost for a long time.
Recent history: from oblivion to rediscovery
Fragments sent to the Bardo Museum after the 1943 disaster were soon forgotten.
The panther mosaic, for its part, was deposited at an unknown time at the Bizerte Admiralty, and sent to France at an unknown date to join the collections of the Musée National de la Marine in Paris (inventory number 470A34). The medallion was then deposited with the Musée Napoléonien d'Antibes in 1963, and only recovered and identified in 1998. The work is now in a "mediocre" state of conservation.
In the 1980s, Mongi Ennaïfer found an element of the Winning Horses mosaic and eleven pieces of the Sorothus Stud mosaic at the Bardo Museum. After 2004, Taher Ghalia, Director of the Bardo National Museum, began to search for the fragments preserved there. A presentation in the Sousse archaeological museum was then desired. The fragments of the Sorothus stud mosaic were restored and installed in the Sousse museum at the beginning of the 21st century, during the extensive restructuring of this cultural institution.
Hardly visible in the room of the palace where it was exhibited on the floor, the Salle des Fêtes, then known as the Salle de Sousse, the Neptune mosaic was relocated during the rehabilitation and extension of the Bardo Museum in the 2010s.
Description
Description of the house and mosaics found other than the Neptune mosaic
House
The layout of the Sorothus house is classic if we compare it with those known in Roman Africa.
The house is organized around a garden or viridarium, with a peristyle opening onto an œcus. When Gustave Hannezo excavated the area known as the viridarium, he uncovered elements of Misma shell sandstone and stuccoed limestone columns. These elements may have come from the destruction of the peristyle. Two basins were present in the viridarium. Excavations in the garden revealed a pottery drain pipe.
Rubble stone pillars formed the openings to the rooms overlooking the porticoes. A semicircular apse was present in the garden. The excavator assumes that the 0.50 m-wide walls were made of "mud and rubble from demolition work" and that the house had only one level. The upper parts of the walls were built of "not very resistant" adobe.
The walls were decorated with paintings, including geometric designs and "real paintings". The entire surface of the house was decorated with mosaics. One portico had lost its mosaics when it was rediscovered.
The peristyle gave access to the rooms, including the œcus and two rooms decorated with mosaics of horses, the stud mosaic, and the winning horse mosaic. The Neptune mosaic room also featured frescoes of dolphins. Threshold mosaics in the peristyle featured inscriptions, Ad leone[m] ("At the lion's house") and Ad apru[m] ("At the wild boar's house"); these rooms may have been bedrooms.
Animals must have been painted on the walls. The mosaic in the lion's room featured the location of a bed. The boar room had the inscription ad apru[m] in front of the entrance. The animals may have been chosen because they were present in games that the owner might have been fond of. The panther, lion, and boar rooms were decorated with mosaics featuring black and white geometric motifs. Opposite the entrance to the Neptune room, an apse featured a polychrome fan-shaped mosaic. The panther room featured brightly painted plasterwork. This room may have been called "Chez la panthère" or "Chez le lion ".
The corridors, over 3 m wide, were mosaic-painted with twists around the edges. The exedra facing the oecus featured a polychrome mosaic. The œcus, a large room providing access to the peristyle, was "wide open to the outside" and had nine thresholds on three sides.
Panther medallion
The panther mosaic, "opposite the entrance door", measures 1.30 m in diameter, but was found mutilated. The tame, walking animal wears a collar. The color rendering of the animal's coat produces "a striking effect", according to René du Coudray de La Blanchère. The representation of the animal is remarkable, inspired by a real animal, but the state of conservation is "mediocre". According to Jean-Pierre Laporte, the plant motifs in the medallion, two scrolls ending in ivy leaves, are a reference to the sodality of the Taurisci. The motif is also present on a threshold, on the horse mosaic and a medallion in the Neptune mosaic, featuring an ichthyosaur. According to Louis Foucher, this is a sign with prophylactic value. The mosaic also has a Dionysian meaning, the ivy motif often accompanying the divinity.
The panther medallion is surrounded by 0.29 m squares with Solomon's knots. The room was also brightly painted and its floor covered with black and white geometric mosaics.
Mosaic of stud farms
The stud farm mosaic measured 4.10 m by 3.40 m when first discovered. The right-hand side was then amputated. Presumed lost in the fighting of the Second World War, it is now preserved in the Bardo Museum and the Sousse Museum.
Four pairs of "Arab" horses are set in medallions at the corners.
The mosaic features a plant border and four medallions with horses and in the middle a landscape scene consisting of a plain with a river and free-roaming horses, a villa with another building surrounded by animals (cow, goat, hare, birds), an eroded mountain landscape with a building and a stream. The villa features columns on its façade and two square towers. Deer horns are placed on the skylight in a "presumably prophylactic" sense. The building is semicircular and the towers have terraced roofs. The building belongs to a type of villa rustica known from archaeology and iconography from the 1st to the 2nd century; the representation on the stud mosaic shows a building that is probably fairly faithful to the character's villa.
In the foreground, Paul Gauckler evokes a mare farm, echoed by Mohamed Yacoub. The mosaic evokes the "confines of wild, uninhabited nature" and the "humanized countryside". A figure plays the syrinx. Yacoub evokes "the influence of idyllic and fanciful landscapes" and the influence of Alexandrian art, even if the landscape resembles those of the Tunisian steppe. The buildings are also plausible.
Horses compete on either side of the symbol of victory, the medallions being "artificially embedded" in the mosaic, according to Yacoub. This representation is a first, as the horses shown existed. The mosaicist has created a kind of "advertising billboard" for the [...] Sorothus stud farms", a "means of propaganda". According to Katherine Dunbabin, Louis Foucher, and Jean-Pierre Laporte, the mosaic represents the Sorothus stud farms and is not just a convention. The mosaic aims to reproduce reality.