I was driven to the ruins of ancient Utica by an unsuspecting friend on a
Sunday afternoon, not long
before the small, rural museum's closing time. I was not at all prepared
for this Roman p6m pattern lurking under my feet; in fact I first noticed
only the black triangles and one of their cm subpatterns in my walking
direction! Not surprisingly, hexagons host sixfold centers, triangles host
threefold centers, and rectangles host twofold centers; glide reflections
are nicely underlined by 'upright' and 'inverted' yellow triangles.
(The center above is reconstruction, the two sides are original.)
"Opus sectile" d' Utique -- near Tunis, 5/24/98
[Photo by Nicolas Fauque' -- from Fethi Chelbi's "Utique la splendide", p. 57]
Click here for Utica's 'sea god'!