ABSTRACT
Everyone knows the magnificent mosaic floor of the Great Palace, splendidly restored and displayed in its new museum, and now dated to the sixth-century by the evidence of the underlying pottery. The excavated mosaics survive from three sides of an open court. The new floor consisted of Proconnesian marble slabs between two to two and a half a half meters long and one to one and a half meters wide which were laid at a level from twelve to forty five centimeters above the sixth-century mosaic, over an intervening fill of stones, marble chips, and mortar. The text of Theophanes Continuatus, which includes many descriptions of buildings erected in the Great Palace, is notable for the amount of attention that it gives to their floors; clearly, marble pavements were considered an important part of the embellishment of the interiors.
