{"id":5829,"date":"2019-09-24T15:45:39","date_gmt":"2019-09-24T12:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/?post_type=portfolio&p=5829"},"modified":"2025-11-05T12:09:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T10:09:20","slug":"architecture1","status":"publish","type":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/portfolio-item\/architecture1\/","title":{"rendered":"Reconstructed Opus Sectile Floor Patterns from Herod’s Temple Courts (20 BCE \u2013 70 CE)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opus Sectile<\/span><\/em> floor tiles from Herod\u2019s Temple and surrounding courts. Like many other techniques originating in the Roman world, Opus sectile<\/em>\u00a0floors were first used locally in Herod\u2019s grandiose buildings.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The tiles were meticulously cut in geometric shapes, and precisely fitted into a colorful geometric pattern based on the Roman foot (29.6 cm).<\/span><\/p>\n

While some were local, many of the multi-colored tiles were imported from a variety of locales, including Asia Minor, Greece, Tunisia and Egypt. These magnificent floor tiles give us yet another glimpse into the splendor of Herod\u2019s Temple, and illuminate the texts which have been studied for thousands of years and never fully appreciated \u2014 such as Josephus\u2019 description: \u201cThose entire courts that were exposed to the sky were laid with stones of all colors and all sorts<\/strong>\u201d (War of the Jews V.192<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Using geometric principles, in addition to parallels found at other Herodian sites, we have succeeded in restoring the ornate tile patters that decorated the courts of Herod\u2019s Temple Mount.<\/p>\n

\"\" \"\" \"\"<\/p>\n

Further reading about these reconstructions:<\/p>\n

F. Snyder, G. Barkay and Z. Dvira, “What the Temple Mount Floor Looked Like<\/a>“, Biblical Archaeology Review,<\/em> nov\/dec 2016<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Opus Sectile floor tiles from Herod\u2019s Temple and surrounding courts. Like many other techniques originating in the Roman world, Opus sectile floors were first used locally in Herod\u2019s grandiose buildings.
\nThe tiles were meticulously cut in geometric shapes, and precisely fitted into a colorful geometric pattern based on the Roman foot (29.6 cm).
\nThe multi-colored tiles were imported from a variety of locales, including Asia Minor, Greece, Tunisia and Egypt. These magnificent floor tiles give us yet another glimpse into the splendor of Herod\u2019s Temple, and illuminate the texts which have been studied for thousands of years and never fully appreciated \u2014 such as Josephus\u2019 description: \u201cThose entire courts that were exposed to the sky were laid with stones of all colors and all sorts\u201d (War of the Jews V.192).<\/p>\n

Using geometric principles, in addition to parallels found at other Herodian sites, we have succeeded in restoring the ornate tile patters that decorated the courts of Herod\u2019s Temple Mount.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":11351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[379],"portfolio_entries":[378,363],"class_list":["post-5829","portfolio","type-portfolio","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-architecture","portfolio_entries-architecture","portfolio_entries-virtual-museum"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/5829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/portfolio"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5829"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/5829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11352,"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/5829\/revisions\/11352"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5829"},{"taxonomy":"portfolio_entries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmsifting.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_entries?post=5829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}