Qasr mosaic leopard and VMS Leo/August image

[Sam G]

Near as I can tell, you have shown an example from Libya, and one from Tunisia. What is the same source, exactly? 

What I meant is that the goat in the VMS and the goat in the mosaic appear to have the same source, which was presumably an image in a book of some kind.  Whether the leopard image and the goat image came from the same source book or different books I don't know.  Really we can only speculate here since no ancient books have survived intact.  If they had, then we would look at them directly, rather than try to get a sense of their contents by looking at these mosaics.

I went to my old computer to see if I had saved a copy of the one I said I'd seen before, but couldn't find anything so I don't know if it's a case of deja vu or whether I actually saw it, but I could swear it was a blue leopard with a palm tree behind, and if it's not your example then perhaps it's one in the same tradition as you say, so I really was hoping to find it, but no luck. If I come across it I will let you know for sure.

Okay, thanks.

I don't understand why people think it is a palm tree, though, why can it not just be the lion's tail in the drawing? Seems the simplest idea. I did see a copy of your mosaic example that said it was an olive tree, although it was on a stock picture site so who knows, not likely an expert involved there, and I couldn't find any other reference to it.

It might actually be an olive tree.  I was calling it a palm tree because it vaguely resembled a palm tree to my eyes, but I'm not knowledgeable about trees at all.  The main point is that the tree in the mosaic looks like the one in the VMS Leo image.

But, do you know what they call the trimming that results in a tree that looks like that? Lion tailing.

Interesting.  But in any case, the tail in the VMS looks different from any Leo image I have seen, which makes the resemblance to this tree quite striking.

Insofar as the goat, yes, similar, but I wouldn't say a definite copy job. Like all the different forms of art involving these animals, yes there are similarities, but again nothing that can confirm anything.

Admittedly I did find some vaguely similar goats in medieval manuscripts but nothing as close as this image.  I think the roughness of the coat, the shape of the tail, and the presence of the ground and the tree in the VMS image point toward an afffinity with this mosaic.  Also, some of the differences seem like they can be accounted for by changing the frame of the image from square to circular, such as the shorter tree and the different position of the legs.

Anyway, I'll put you down as another vote for "coincidence".  Any others?

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For me, the statements from a well-know expert in zodiac iconography:

"The signs of the Zodiac do not present problems - they are simply not of the Arateia type but were modernized.
[...]
The genre scenes, eg. Aries eating a bush, suggest that the signs were redrawn from a calendar. "

are far more convincing.

You cite these opinions as though she considered the evidence I presented above and dismissed it as irrelevant, but of course these opinions were offered before this evidence was available, so it is hard to see the relevance of this quote here.  In any case, the remark about "redrawn from a calendar" seems to imply that she perceived an outside influence of some kind in the VMS Zodiac imagery, which along with the point about the imagery being "modernized" is actually perfectly consistent with the scenario I outlined above.

Anyway, although you did not really say so in a direct way, I will interpret your remarks as indicating that you believe the similarities in the images I presented above to be purely coincidental.

I don't want to second-guess about what she may or may not have thought, but obviously she will be fully aware of the existence of zodiac images in mosaics throughout the ages.

But that's sort of the point - these mosaic images aren't from zodiacs, and the use of a goat to represent Aries is unusual in the first place.  So of course there's no reason to think that she had seen these particular images.

Given the difference both in time and geographic location of the two images, I do consider them independent, so the similarity to be a generic one.

Again I don't see any basis to this kind of objection considering that plenty of material from the ancient Mediterranean is known to have been transmitted to medieval Europe by various routes.

If one has a large number of images of a goat, some will end up being quite similar.

Like I said in my response to Linda above, there are some very specific points of similarity and I doubt one can find a better comparison in a medieval manuscript (and if one could, that would also likely be a valuable clue).

I understand (interpret) the modernisation to have been a gradual process. Documents being copied throughout the ages.

Which is not entirely different from the scenario I outlined in the original post.