The dolphin mosaic
A near-complete coloured marine floor in one of the courts.
**Not if you know what you are looking at โ the issue is honesty rather than complete authenticity.** โ **What is original**: **the plan** (the positions of rooms, courts and passages as excavated), **the floors**, and **the mosaics** โ which is the real archaeological value. โ **What is modern**: **the raised walls, the roofs and the re-erected columns** โ built by the Italians in the 1930s over the discovered foundations. โ **The legitimate criticism**: reconstruction **assumes** how the building looked and can be wrong; and it **mixes original with modern** to an untrained eye. That criticism is also levelled at **Evans's reconstruction at Knossos**, the most famous case of the kind. โ **What you gain in exchange**: **the experience of space**. Walking a **roofed portico around a courtyard** and understanding how light entered and how rooms connected โ **which knee-high foundations cannot give you**, however authentic. โ **So the rule**: go knowing โ and the reconstruction becomes **a tool for understanding** rather than a deception.
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**A grand Roman house rebuilt and roofed, so you walk through it as it was** โ minutes from the Kos agora. It is a **3rd-century Roman villa** of some **thirty-six rooms** and three colonnaded inner courtyards, built for a very wealthy family. It came to light after the **1933 earthquake**, and the **Italians then rebuilt its walls and roof** on the basis of what was found. โ Which means what you see is **a partial modern reconstruction** rather than a standing original building โ **but it follows the original plan**, and the floors and mosaics are original and in place. โ Its finest feature is the **mosaics**: coloured floors of marine scenes, dolphins, panthers and fish, some almost complete. โ And the visit is **roofed and shaded** โ rare on a hot island.
A near-complete coloured marine floor in one of the courts.
Three inner courtyards showing how a Roman house was arranged.
A coloured animal scene, among the house's best known.
Kos Town, 85300 Kos, Greece