可疑的镶嵌画The questionable mosaic

78° The questionable mosaic. There is, in the Municipal Art Institute at Frankfurt am Main, a mosaic picturing a venerable scholar seated in a chair before a sand tray resting on a low table. The scholar is looking back over his shoulder at a menacing Roman soldier who, with drawn sword and a pointing arm, seems to be ordering the engaged scholar to rise and follow. There seems little doubt that this mosaic commemorates the last moments of Archimedes.

Until recently, it was believed that the mosaic had been uncovered in the floor of a room of ancient Pompeii (which was destroyed and buried in the volcanic eruption of the year 70), when that city was under excavation not many years ago. This origin of the mosaic is now believed to be fraudulent, and it is thought that the mosaic is a sixteenth-century copy of some earlier work, or perhaps is a pure falsification. Thus another pretty little story has been discredited, or at least cast into grave doubt.