Qasr mosaic leopard and VMS Leo/August image

[Sam G]

I haven't looked at bestiaries yet, but here's a parallel for the perspective of the face and placement of the eyes from El Djem, Tunis:

The weird thing about the VMS Leo is that its head is facing forward, as in the Qasr mosaic image, but its eyes are on the side of its head.  That makes me think the eyes may be a later addition.  Then again, it's the only animal (including humans) in the VMS to have such eyes, which may suggest that those eyes were already in the source that the VMS borrowed from.

Another interesting thing to note about the El Djem mosaics is that, like the VMS, they also contain a calendar beginning in March (which was the case in early Roman times, but pretty old-fashioned by the time these mosaics were made):



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