Pictures photos & images of Africa style Roman mosaics from North Africa and Sicily. All the Roman mosaics that depict scenes or geometric shapes date from after the first century AD as true mosaics using the opus tessellated, small coloured ceramics, did not exist before this date. In Italy from this date the popular mosaic style were mosaic designs of black tesserae against a white background but very few examples of this style exists in Roman African mosaics. The next development of mosaics in the first half of the second century AD saw the inclusion of polychrome, coloured tesserae, into simple geometric borders of Roman mosaics. These early polychrome Roman mosaics are found scattered across north Africa in Carthage , Sousse, El Jem and in Byzantine. By the last half of the second and beginning of the third century AD African mosaicists started to develop geometric frames for their mosaics. At this point a style emerged that featured vegetative patterns with decorative motifs that branched out across the whole mosaic pavement. Popular figurative motifs included animals, sea life and objects from the every day life of the African Romans. It was during this period of the Pax Romana that African mosaics became recognised as one of the most important schools of creative mosaic production. The influence of its style spread to the majority of the Roman provinces and became so popular that the floors Villa Romana del Casale, in present day Sicily, the home of Emperor Maximianus were decorated by African mosaicists in an African mosaic style. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Roman Province of Africa Proconsularis was ruled by the Eastern Roman ( Byzantines ) from Constantinople. After the rule of Constantine the Eastern Roman Empire became Christian and many examples of early Christian mosaics still exist from Africa Proconsularis. these include church pavement mosaics and memorial mosaics from early churches. In the 7th century AD Africa Proconsularis fell to the Islamic hoards that poured out of the Arabian peninsular. The new Islamic rulers were not interested in occupying the old Roman towns which left thousands of mosaics covered with ruined houses which is why Tunisia, in particular, has an incredible number of fine mosaics which are exhibited in the great Bardo museum in Tunis as well as museums in El Jem and Sousse. .

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