ABSTRACT
In Russia, tiled floors were largely used in churches made of stone and brick, but also in some wooden ones. There are also finds indicating that tiles decorated the floors of palaces. The simplest pattern of floor covering was formed by square tiles laid diagonally (fig. 38). The glazed tiles were of three colours, yellow, green and dark red-brown. Although the tiles were set diagonally, the rows of one colour went along the longitudinal axis of the church, i.e. from the western entrance to the altar. The diagonal rows formed triangular spaces next to the walls, in which triangular tiles were laid, creating the border of the floor. Thus, a set of tiles would consist of a large number of square tiles and a small number of triangular ones. However, more complicated patterns were also made with the same square and triangular tiles. In some cases excavations have revealed a larger number of triangular than square tiles. This could indicate that those floors were not composed of one pattern, but several patterns separated by straight lines, which would need many more triangular tiles. Such a floor pattern may have been found sketched on a brick from the Katholikon of Sts Boris and Gleb at the monastery on the Smiadyn' in Smolensk (fig. 39). When tiled floors were placed in the apse or entrance, and not in the naos, the tiles were usually placed parallel to the walls, and not diagonally. Some excavations have produced triangular tiles exclusively, for example, the square area beneath the cupola of the Old Cathedral in Vladimir-inVolynia.4 In this case the triangular tiles probably formed a more complicated radial pattern, converging in the central circle, the so-called omphalos. A fragment of such a pattern was found during the excavations of a wooden church in Zvenigorod-Galitskii.5
