book cover
Download Sample PDF

H 276 x W 203 mm

232 pages

187 figures (colour throughout)

Published Mar 2026

Archaeopress Archaeology

ISBN

Paperback: 9781805832331

Digital: 9781805832348

DOI 10.32028/9781805832331

Recommend to a librarian

Keywords
Roman Britain; Mosaics; Villas

Related titles

Mosaics in Britannia

By Stephen R. Cosh

Paperback
£29.99

This title is not yet published. You may pre-order, with print copies despatching, and digital copies available to download via your account page, immediately following publication.

Add to basket

Add to wishlist

This book surveys Romano-British mosaics—their craft, design, themes, and role within buildings. It highlights their literary sophistication and social significance, traces their late Roman decline, and follows their rediscovery, challenging assumptions that Britain was a cultural backwater.

READ MORE

Contents

List of Figures

Author’s note

Chapter One: Introduction   

Chapter Two: Manufacture

Chapter Three: Schemes, patterns and motifs

Chapter Four: First- to third-century mosaics

Chapter Five: Fourth-century Groups

Chapter Six: Figured mosaics

Chapter Seven: Mythological stories and literature

Chapter Eight: Sports and leisure    

Chapter Nine: Paganism, Christianity and superstition

Chapter Ten: Mosaics in principal rooms

Chapter Eleven: Baths and the Porticus

Chapter Twelve: Mosaics in aisled buildings

Chapter Thirteen: Maintenance, repair and alterations

Chapter Fourteen: Mosaics and the end of Roman Britain

Chapter Fifteen: How mosaics were recorded

Chapter Sixteen: Mosaics on display

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Stephen R. Cosh DLitt FSA is an independent archaeological writer and illustrator specialising in the Roman period. He worked for over thirty-five years with his colleague, David S. Neal, on the research, production and publication of the five-volume corpus of Romano-British mosaics, completed in 2024. He has contributed specialist reports on the mosaics from several sites, including Chedworth, Low Ham, Dewlish and Colliton Park, Dorchester, and the building report for the large villa complex at Eccles, Kent. He has also written articles on a variety of archaeological aspects of Roman Britain in addition to those concerning mosaics, appearing in the proceedings of several county archaeological societies, Britannia, Antiquaries Journal, Mosaic, the Association for Roman Archaeology (ARA) publications, among others. For many years he was secretary, editor and later vice-chairman of ASPROM (the Association for the Study and Preservation of Roman Mosaics).