The large pavement at Qasr el-Lebia in Cyrenaica: episodes, narratives and transformations.
The main focus of this thesis is the large mosaic pavement in the East Church complex at Qasr el-Lebia in Cyrenaica, Libya. It sets out to establish whether the fifty panels which comprise the pavement constitute a coherent programme. In order to do that the literature is reviewed, the site is set in its Cyrenaican context in terms of its history, its physical geography, its settlement patterns and its principal Christian buildings. The dating of the mosaic is considered and a detailed panel-bypanel catalogue of the images is offered. An iconographical study looks closely at groups of panels and correspondences between panels with a view to establishing whether they were entirely independent, one of another, or whether they constituted an overall programme. Having concluded that there are, indeed, significant levels of coherence, the study addresses a number of apparent discrepancies by looking at examples - in literature, sculpture and architecture – of a late antique predilection for disjunctions, puzzles and puns. After this wide-ranging review, the thesis returns to the most immediate context for the floor – its architectural setting. Inconclusive without further excavation, it nevertheless explores the possibility, based largely on the architectural evidence, that the pavement belonged to the ground floor of an episcopium. Finally, the study proposes an overall programme for the pavement and examines how the architecture constrained, and how the layout and iconography of the floor contributed to, a physical experience of the space in what may have been the consignatorium of a baptistery.
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