“Lost Secrets of Love: Stunning 2,300-Year-Old Mosaic of Battling Cupids Unearthed in Türkiye.”
Mantha Zarmakoupi, the University of Pennsylvania professor leading the excavations, recalled the moment her team uncovered the mosaic in a press release: “There’s this feeling of euphoria. You’re like, ‘Oh my god, there’s something really there.’”
In addition to the mosaics, archaeologists also discovered a block bearing an inscription that was partially erased and only visible in certain lights. These blocks would have sat high on the council building and displayed the names of the people who paid for the construction — but now they are strewn about the grounds.
Teos Archaeological ProjectThis ancient block from Teos bears an inscription that someone tried to erase.
“The inscription gives us a really valuable indication of the process by which the structures were built and who was involved,” Peter Satterthwaite, a Ph.D. student working with Zarmakoupi on the excavation, stated in the press release. “The fact that it’s erased is a clue to another chapter in the city’s history, in which they no longer wanted to commemorate that person or his involvement in the project.”
The block may have once been engraved with the name of someone associated with the Dionysian artist guild, a group that was influential in Teos before it was expelled. Researchers have organized and analyzed the blocks using 3D modeling techniques, but some of the inscriptions cannot be decoded, and further excavations of the area will be necessary to put together the missing portions.
“Every piece of this process has been revealing itself like an onion,” Zarmakoupi stated. “It peels off and another thing arrives.”
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