The mosaic is called the Megalopsyche mosaic, it was discovered in a villa called the Yakto Villa, in 1932. The central medallion holds Megalopsychia, which means “greatness of soul”, the museum speaks of “generosity and supreme spirit”. Several named people or mythical figures are represented around it, hunting animals. The border is the most important part, depicting buildings of Antioch and in particular Daphne in the 5th century AD and its people. Their names are attached to the buildings (bath, stadium, administrative buildings).
As I have visited the old museum many times, I was looking forward to seeing this mosaic with in its border scenes of everyday life in its new setting. I had a new camera with much higher resolution than its predecessors. And superior colours. Now, back home, I am somewhat disappointed. In the old one the mosaic could be viewed in natural light. In the new situation it is lit by what I take to be led-lights, and they are of varying colours. I think a grid of reddish and bluish lights were used, and one can spot this on the full-size picture I took. Though I do not exclude the role of mixed light from other sources, such as some direct light filtering in, and some reflections.
Still, I am rather pleased with the new pictures I took, in particular the ones of the border. So I give that a sub-gallery of its own. Still, differences between the perspective in several pictures can be seen, and it will be even worse in the few merged pictures I took. Also, the light being variable, there are differences in colour and saturation. Similar problems are visible in 2011. Most are almost straight out of (a professional, Nikon D3) camera, though I have added some contrast, and a minute amount of sharpening. As a matter of fact, even the original mosaics looked rather bland, and could do with much more brightening than I show here. Throwing a bucket of water over them would bring out their actual colours better, but museums being what they are I kept it dry.