Pavements et sols en béton et en mortier : vocabulaire, techniques, diffusion

The twenty papers gathered in this volume come from the International Symposium held at the Maison méditerranéenne des Sciences de l’Homme (MMSH) in Aix-en-Provence, on April 26th – 27th, 2017, on concrete / mortar floors, undervalued in the studies of ancient pavement. The goal was to reflect on the built floors from the Hellenistic period to late Antiquity in an interdisciplinary approach where archaeologists, architects, searchers specialized in mosaic pavements, materials, restorers, curators … share their point of view by giving a major interest to materials and techniques used.

Thanks to the presentation of numerous findings, old as well as very recent ones, but also to the analyzes of materials and to the diversity of viewpoints raised on these pavements, the work of the ancient mosaicist becomes more evident which one discovers sometimes linked to other craftsmen involved in the building. We see the emergence of the concept of site building economy.

The rich harvest of documents examined here makes possible to understand, in a broad chronology and over a vast territory, the implementations and the supply necessary for the realization of those floors, underlining the great technical knowledge of ancient mosaicists and their skills in trade term. The vocabulary used for those pavements, a hard question, was dealt with during the conference in the form of a round table. This volume shows that there is still some way to be shared regarding these pavements which now appear to be of great and beautiful diversity.