Archaeologists uncover gorgeous 1,700-year-old courtyard mosaic in Israel

While preparing to build a visitor's center at the site of one of the most spectacular ancient mosaics ever discovered, archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority inadvertently found a second breathtaking mosaic in what is the modern-day city of Lod. The new find, which is 1,700 years old, would have been located in the courtyard of an affluent family's villa during Roman and Byzantine times.

The mosaic measures a massive 36 feet by 42 feet and depicts scenes of hunting animals, fish, birds, baskets, and vases. "The quality of the images portrayed in the mosaic indicates a highly developed artistic ability," the director of the excavation, Amir Gorzalczany, said.

Two decades earlier, a similarly incredible mosaic in the villa's living room was uncovered at the same location. The visitor's center in Lod was being built to accommodate the mosaic after it returned from a tour that had seen it displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Louvre in Paris, and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

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