Overview
- The University of Leicester’s findings, led by Dr Jane Masséglia and published in Britannia, argue the Ketton mosaic reflects Aeschylus’ Phrygians rather than Homer’s Iliad.
- The villa’s dining-room floor presents three scenes: Achilles’ duel with Hector, the dragging of Hector’s body, and Priam weighing Hector for gold.
- Researchers identify the top panel as deriving from an Athenian vase design of Aeschylus’ era and connect other motifs to coins and silverwork from Greece, Turkey and Gaul.
- The study contends Romano-British craftsmen worked from long-lived Mediterranean design repertoires, indicating sustained cultural connectivity across the Roman world.
- Discovered in 2020 by Jim Irvine, the Scheduled Monument was excavated by ULAS with Historic England in 2021–22, with broader site results in preparation for publication.