Mosaic Excavations, Zeugma Mosaic Museum, Commagene, Gaziantep Province, Turkey

Recent excavations and the legacy of ancient Zeugma
In 1987 the Gaziantep Museum excavated two tomb chambers which had been broken into by antiquity smugglers in the necropolis southwest of Zeugma, revealing frescos on the walls and statues on the terraces in front of the chambers. These statues are now in the Gaziantep Museum of Archaeology. In 1992 the watchman at the site, Nusret Özdemir, reported renewed illegal activity there, and a trench dug by antiquity hunters was discovered in the centre of the city. Excavations commenced on the same spot by a team from Gaziantep Museum led by director Rifat Ergeç uncovered a Roman villa and magnificent mosaic pavements. The 1st century AD villa consisted of galleries around an atrium with eight columns and rooms behind the galleries. The mosaic which adorned the villa's gallery depicted the marriage of Dionysus, god of wine and grapes, to Ariadne. Sadly, six of the ten figures portrayed in this mosaic were stolen on 15 June 1998.
In further excavations, in which David Kennedy from Australia participated in 1993, part of the central panel of the mosaic pavement belonging to the terrace of another villa turned out to have been stolen long since - probably around 1965 - so the two figures are missing from the knees upwards.The missing mosaic fragment was later found to be in the Menil Collection at Rice University in the city of Houston. The two figures seated side by side in this mosaic are the two legendary lovers, Metiochos and Parthenope. At the request of the Turkish Ministry of Culture, the stolen fragment was returned, and the complete mosaic can now be seen in Gaziantep Museum.