About Roman Mosaics Mosaic: picture or decoration made of small, usually colored pieces of inlaid stone, glass, or tile. Tesserae are the pieces used in the mosaic. The expansion of the Roman Empire expanded the use of mosaics. Roman subjects were often scenes celebrating their gods, domestic themes, and geometric designs.

Rules No scissors! Mosaics are made of jagged pieces called “tesserae” they don’t have straight edges. No ink, color, pencil or line marks. No overlapping pieces. When tesserae are set in a mosaic they are set using grout with space between. You can’t layer tile, stone, or glass.

Geometric designs were popular in mosaics, the inter- twined rope border effect here is called "guilloche".

Byzantine mosaic of Emperor of Justinian from AD.

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