Archaeologists have discovered a stunning 1,500-year-old house in Turkey adorned with illusion murals and terracotta tiles on the floor with puppy prints and possible chicken decorations embedded in them.
The house may have been used by people involved in the military, the researchers said.
“The tiles preserved the paw prints of puppies and in one rare case the hoof prints of a goat,” Frances Gallart Marqués, a former curator at the Harvard Art Museums, said on January 6 during a presentation at the virtual joint annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and the Society for Classical Studies (SCS).
Related: 24 amazing archaeological discoveries
The researchers probably said that the animals walked on the tiles while they were dry before being shot. Drawings depicting chickens or ducks were also found on the floor tiles; “it was pulled with the finger before the tiles were fired,” Gallart Marqués said.
If the floor tiles were left visible and not covered by a carpet, the paw prints and possible chicken decorations would have gone well with the ‘imaginative’ style of the murals of the house, the researchers told WordsSideKick. The murals were imitated on plaster and curtains and polychrome marble, said Vanessa Rousseau, an assistant professor of art history at the University of St. Louis. Thomas in St. Thomas Paul, Minnesota, said at the virtual meeting.
The mixture of colors and illusions in the paintings, combined with the possible chicken decorations on the floor, as well as light coming through the windows, created a fantastic look. One can imagine yourself being ‘surrounded by the somewhat surrealistic falsification of painted marble and curtains’ with light coming through the windows and ‘shining on the bird marks on the terracotta floor,’ Rousseau said during her presentation.
Although the paintings and prints of the puppies may be playful, five long words in the house raise the question of whether the inhabitants were involved in warfare. The long words are ‘spathae’, which are straight swords used by the ancient Romans whose length was usually longer than 50 centimeters.
Related: The coolest antique weapons discovered in 2020
Since only three other swords were found in the excavated parts of Sardis, the discovery of five long words in this house is remarkable, the researchers told WordsSideKick. In addition to the long words, archaeologists have also found buckles with designs that indicate they were worn by members of the military, and a pilot seal that could be used to print official documents. These findings, along with the central location of the house in Sardis, suggest that the people in the house were part of the city’s military or civilian authority, the researchers said.
The house was in use for more than 200 years before an earthquake destroyed it in the early seventh century. Excavation by the Sardis expedition of Harvard University is done with the permission of the Turkish government and is led by Professor Nicholas Cahill of the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
Originally published on Live Science.