The Beauty of Durrës (also called The Beautiful Maiden of Durrës or The Belle of Durrës) is a

polychromatic Polychrome is the "practice of decorating architectural elements, sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors." The term is used to refer to certain styles of architecture, pottery or sculpture in multiple colors. Ancient Egypt Colossal statu ...

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

of the 4th century BC and is the most ancient and important mosaic discovered in

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...

.BANK OF ALBANI
Coin with “The Beauty of Durrës”
Fjalori Enciklopedik Shqiptar, Akademia e Shkencave - Tiranë, 1984 (MOZAIKU I DURRËSIT ME PORTRETIN E NJE GRUAJE, page 726) The mosaic is elliptical in shape and depicts a woman’s head on a black background, surrounded by flowers and other floral elements. It was discovered in 1918 in

Durrës Durrës ( , ; sq-definite, Durrësi) is the second most populous city of the Republic of Albania and seat of Durrës County and Durrës Municipality. It is located on a flat plain along the Albanian Adriatic Sea Coast between the mouths of ...

, and since 1982 has been on display at the National Historical Museum of Albania in

Tirana Tirana ( , ; aln, Tirona) is the capital and largest city of Albania. It is located in the centre of the country, enclosed by mountains and hills with Dajti rising to the east and a slight valley to the northwest overlooking the Adriatic Sea ...

History

The mosaic was created in the second half of 4th century BC in

, then known as Epidamnos, to serve as the decorative floor of a private and luxurious restroom. The mosaic was discovered in 1916, in the middle of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, when Durrës was occupied by the forces of

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

. During works by the Austro-Hungarian

army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

to construct air raid shelters, the military engineers ran into this mosaic, which was unearthed deep in the foundations of a house in the “Varosh” quarter, very close to the present-day city centre of Durrës city. The Austrian archaeologist Camillo Praschniker quickly examined the mosaic in April 1918 before the shelter was finished. In his article ''Muzakhia and Malakastra: Archaeological research in Central Albania'' (german: Muzakhia und Malakastra: archäologische Untersuchungen in Mittelalbanien), published in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

in 1920, Praschniker was the first to include a picture of the mosaic and he described it as a figurative masterpiece. Eventually, after the end of the war, The Beauty of Durrës was covered up and lost to view, only to be rediscovered in 1947 by an archaeologist from Durrës, Vangjel Toçi. It became widely known to the world of art history only after 1959. In 1982 the mosaic was carefully moved from Durrës and placed in the main hall of antiquities in the National Historical Museum at Tirana, where it can still be seen today.

Mosaic description

Some 24 centuries old, the mosaic known as ''The Beauty of Durrës'' has a surface area of about nine square metres. It is elliptical in shape, some across at the widest and some at the narrowest. The mosaic is made of unworked coloured pebbles and is still in fairly good condition. The formal expression represents a good example of the art of antiquity, in which

Hellenistic art Hellenistic art is the art of the Hellenistic period generally taken to begin with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and end with the conquest of the Greek world by the Romans, a process well underway by 146 BCE, when the Greek mainlan ...

is combined with the local motifs of

Illyrian art The Illyrians ( grc, Ἰλλυριοί, ''Illyrioi''; la, Illyrii) were a group of Indo-European languages, Indo-European-speaking peoples who inhabited the western Balkan Peninsula in ancient times. They constituted one of the three main Paleo ...

. It is considered one of the world's most expressive mosaics of its

genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...

.Apollon Baçe, Aleksandër Meksi, Emin Riza, Gjerak Karaiskaj, Pirro Thomo - ''Historia e Arkitekturës Shqiptare'' (History of Albanian Architecture - pages 87-88 (in Albanian)) Publisher: Ministria e Arsimit dhe e Kulturës, Instituti i Monumenteve të Kulturës, Tirana 1980 From a stylistical point of view, the mosaic resembles mosaics of the same period discovered in

Pella Pella ( el, Πέλλα) is an ancient city located in Central Macedonia, Greece. It is best-known for serving as the capital city of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon, and was the birthplace of Alexander the Great. On site of the ancient cit ...

, once part of Ancient Macedonia.

The woman portrait

There are at least two theories about the subject portrayed in the mosaic. According to the historian and archaeologist Moikom Zeqo, the woman represented in the mosaic is the same as one painted on archetypes of

amphorae An amphora (; grc, ἀμφορεύς, ''amphoreús''; English plural: amphorae or amphoras) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storag ...

in Apulia and other parts of Southern Italy, with red figures of the

Hellenistic era In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...

. According to him, the Beauty of Durrës represents the

Cretan Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, an ...

goddess

Eileithyia Eileithyia or Ilithyiae or Ilithyia (; grc-gre, Εἰλείθυια; (''Eleuthyia'') in Crete, also (''Eleuthia'') or (''Elysia'') in Laconia and Messene, and (''Eleuthō'') in literature)Nilsson Vol I, p. 313 was the Greek goddess of ch ...

, who was goddess of childbirth and

midwifery Midwifery is the health science and health profession that deals with pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period (including care of the newborn), in addition to the sexual and reproductive health of women throughout their lives. In many ...

, assisting in the healthy delivery of infants. However, the archaeologist Afrim Hoti suggests that the portrait of the woman is probably the maiden Aura, a companion of the goddess Artemis in hunting. The woman’s head is large in scale, with a broad face and wide cheeks. She has a long straight neck, and her head is slightly turned to the left side, creating a three-quarters portrait. Her image appears quiet and peaceful and her look is dreamy, almost melancholic. The figure is depicted with glossy red curved lips. The painstakingly elaborated plasticity of the lips, the lusciousness of their form and their slightly open position, gives her an exceptionally feminine

physiognomy Physiognomy (from the Greek , , meaning "nature", and , meaning "judge" or "interpreter") is the practice of assessing a person's character or personality from their outer appearance—especially the face. The term can also refer to the genera ...

. A single small yellow and red pebble in the

pupil The pupil is a black hole located in the center of the Iris (anatomy), iris of the Human eye, eye that allows light to strike the retina.Cassin, B. and Solomon, S. (1990) ''Dictionary of Eye Terminology''. Gainesville, Florida: Triad Publishing ...

of her eye creates a genuinely rare look on the woman's figure. Her braided crown of auburn hair is particularly well depicted and quite distinguished from the black background through the usage of a white

silhouette A silhouette ( , ) is the image of a person, animal, object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single colour, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject. The interior of a silhouette is featureless, and the silhou ...

. The plastic effect of the mosaic’s female figure in its whole integrity, represents a work of highly developed artistic

craftsmanship Workmanship is a human attribute relating to knowledge and skill at performing a task. Workmanship is also a quality imparted to a product. The type of work may include the creation of handcrafts, art, writing, machinery and other products. Workman ...

for the time.

Background design

The design surrounding the female figure is unique concerning its composition and the mosaic background is black in colour. It is characterized by a strong lyricism of forms, evident in the continuity of the curvaceous lines, spontaneously harmonic design, and the fluid distribution of the elements. The female figure is surrounded by flowers of several kinds, such as hyacinth, lily, and bellflower, as well as other floral elements such as stalks, buds, and petals.

Technique

The Mosaic was made using the

opus vermiculatum ''Opus vermiculatum'' is a method of laying mosaic tesserae to emphasise an outline around a subject. This can be of one or more rows and may also provide background contrast, e.g. as a shadow, sometimes with '' opus tessellatum''. The outline c ...

technique, thus a light outline is drawn around the shapes using tesserae, which is contrasted by the dark black background. The river pebbles of different colors are stuck with each other with a great mastery. The plastic effect of the portrait is achieved by using several nuances of white pebbles, positioned in the model with an exceptional skill. Whereas the black lines are used only for modelling the portrait's main features.

The mosaic figure as part of culture and modern society

The Beauty of Durrës represents a symbol of beauty and it has become an iconic figure which is adopted in several forms of visual art, poetry, popular culture and commercial life especially in

, the city of its origin. Examples of modern utilizations of the Beauty of Durrës are: *In the poetry book "''4 shekuj para Krishtit''" ( en, 4 centuries before Christ) of the Albanian contemporary poet Ferik Ferra, the main poem of the same title deals artistically with the feminine figure of the mosaic and its era, while antiquity is the main subject of the other poems and the book title is an allusion to the time the mosaic was realized. *In the International SummerFest Film of Durrës, the best short film award is named “The Beauty of Durrës” or “The Beautiful Maiden of Durrës Award”. *Association ''Bukuroshja e Durrësit'' in cooperation with the Ministry of Tourism, Cultural Affairs, Youth and Sports (Albania) organizes the International Festival of Modern Dance, held from 2006 both in

and

. *The Albanian artist of marble, Isa Shuaipi realized an artistic imitation of The Beauty of Durrës in June 2009. His work was done by using more than 45 thousand small marble pebbles of five different colors on a quadratic plane with dimensions by . *The scenography of the 30th edition of

Festivali i Këngës Festivali i Këngës (; ), also referred to as simply FiK, is an annual music competition in Albania organised by the national broadcaster Radio Televizioni Shqiptar (RTSH). Broadcast every year since its inauguration in 1962, it has also deter ...

(English: Song’s Festival) in 1991, consisted mainly on an imitation in a larger scale of The Beauty of Durrës, though it differed somehow from the original mosaic. *In the commercial sector, one of the two restaurants of the five star Adriatik hotel in Durrës bears the name of the mosaic ''Bukuroshja e Durrësit''.Adriatik Hotel ***** Durrë
Restaurant "Bukuroshja e Durrësit"

Coin depicting the Beauty of Durrës

In 2004, the Bank of Albania issued a

coin A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order t ...

celebrating Albanian antiquity, depicting the Beauty of Durrës and decorative elements from it on both the obverse and the reverse. This is a

serrated Serration is a saw-like appearance or a row of sharp or tooth-like projections. A serrated cutting edge has many small points of contact with the material being cut. By having less contact area than a smooth blade or other edge, the applied p ...

white-metal coin with a face value of 50 Lekë, in diameter and weighing 5.50 grams, and some 200,000 of the coins were issued, made of an

alloy An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which at least one is a metal. Unlike chemical compounds with metallic bases, an alloy will retain all the properties of a metal in the resulting material, such as electrical conductivity, ductilit ...

of 75 parts of

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

to 25 of

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...

. The coin’s obverse shows the Beauty of Durrës mosaic, surrounded by arches and stylized floral motives from the mosaic. In the arch of the coin there are several decorative motifs, such as symmetrical circles of the Illyrian period. The reverse of the coin bears a decorative creation on its center, surrounded by floral motifs taken from the mosaic. This figure is still accompanied by circles up to the coin arch, below which there is the inscription "SHQIPËRI-ALBANIA 2004". The Albanian painter and engraver Petraq Papa made the punches from which the coin was minted, and this was done by the

Polish Mint The Mint of Poland ( pl, Mennica Polska) is a private company (''Mennica Polska S.A.'') which is the only body permitted to manufacture (mint) coins and investment products in Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a coun ...

(Mennica Państwowa SA) in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beauty Of Durres, The Ancient Greek mosaics Illyrian art Hellenistic art 4th-century BC works Tourist attractions in Tirana Archaeology of Albania