Workers and Workshops of Mosaics in Egypt during Greco Roman Period

Neither the literary nor the archaeological sources, supply us with sufficient information about mosaic workshops, which was called Officina, also we don't know who are the people carrying out the work, whether a single worker by his own or a group. We get some sporadic information about mosaic workers from a few sources, such as: stone inscriptions. Pliny mentioned in his Natural history, the only individual mosaic worker who became a celebrity after his death, he's the Pergamene artist Sossos who made the panel of the pigeons drinking from a vessel. Most of signatures consisted of only the name of the worker and sometimes followed by verb "made" such as the panel of Bernice II from Themuis signed by the Egyptian artist Sophilos, who became famous in the Hellenistic period. Signatures supply us with information about both the social status and place of birth of mosaicists. In the Hellenistic period signatures didn't give much information except the names of artists and their origins.In the Roman period, the names rarely referred to places. Also workers were changing their crafts, or sometimes the boss would establish a workshop in a new center and train a group of local students.

Autorentext
Shahawy, Eman MohsenDr. Eman Mohsen SHAHAWY is an archaeologist and the Director of the Archaeological Affairs for the Center of Mosaics in Egypt, Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Egypt.