Emma Biggs
467 posts
Mosaics in the Ruggero Room at the Royal (Norman) Palace (1131-1154 AD), Palermo - Italy 🇮🇹 The Ruggero Hall is located within the Gioaria Tower in the Norman Royal Palace, which was built on an old Roman and Byzantine complex and subsequently converted into a fortress during the period of Arab domination. During 11th Century AD, Robert Guiscard and Count Roger d’Altavilla (Ruggero I) took up residence here, and later Ruggero II ordered its embellishment and extension for use as a royal palace. It contains the Palatine Chapel and also used to house the Tiraz, the silk workshop set up by the Arabs in which King Ruggero’s celebrated cloak was made (dated 1133–34, Schatzkammer of Vienna). The Ruggero Room, a rectangular space covered with a cross vault, contains exquisite mosaic decoration above a high marble plinth, dating from the regency of Guglielmo (William) I (1170 AD). It covers the walls, lunettes, the undersides of the arches and the vault. Leopards, lions, harts, peacocks, centaurs and bowmen confront one another symmetrically amongst fruit trees and palms in the large lunettes. Spiral branches with leaves and flowers entwine the decorative elements of the vault, interrupted only by geometric bands (at the crossing points) and medallions with lions and griffins. The Swabian eagle, within an octagon at the centre of the vault, dominates the composition, while the double-headed eagle appears on the keystones of the minor arches. The entire decorative structure is laid out on a single tessera background with gold leaf. Thought to be the work of mosaicists trained in Byzantium, the iconographic themes of the mosaic cycle show clear eastern influence, more Persian and Seljuq than Arabic, as a result of the osmosis between the Islamic and Byzantine worlds. 🎥© antiqua_archeologia (IG) #archaeohistories
"People in Gaza have gone from an average of 2 meals a day to 1 meal every other day ...A record low average of 69 aid trucks/day entered in Aug 2024, compared to 500 per day last year, already not enough to meet people’s needs" -new statement from @CARE @SavetheChildren & more
It pains me so much to see all the extreme weather disasters around the world, to see all the destruction and suffering and death... and then hear folk in the Global North say "we must take climate action for the sake of our grandchildren"
