Ḥorvat Beth Loya - Church - Aisles

The overall composition of the north and south isles is similar, although not identical. The fields consist of horizontal pairs of alternating knitted circles and squares, housing animals and birds (mostly defaced but still recognizable, some spared such as a fish, a shrimp and a dog). The south aisle has twelve pairs and the north eleven, with smaller alternating squares and circles in between arranged in horizontal and vertical rows (some with a stylized cross or fruit, i.e. pomegranate). In each pair of medallions the animals are similar, facing each other. They mosaics of the isles include (west to east): 1) Northern: an ibex, a goat cropping grass, two chickens, an ass or calf, a hen or pheasant(?), a camel or ass, a rabbit, a bird, a leopard, a duck(?) and a leaping goat, 2) Southern: a gallinule (porphyrio), a deer or ram, two chicks, a rabbit, an ibex, a collared dog, a fish and crab, the duck, a lamb, another duck, an antelope and a bird (perhaps a dove). In the middle of both isles (not entirely symmetrical) there is large medallion spanning the entire width of the nave mosaic (diameter 1,47 m): (1) the north one houses a sailing boat in the see rich in fish with two fishermen holding fisher-rod and oars alternatively, (2) the south one depicts two standing fishermen, where the first holds fish and a net, and the second basket with a fish (all human figures are defaced). The outer frame of both isles is closed with A2 border with a broad white margin, bearing on its western edge facing the entrance a goblet filled with fruit flanked by two birds: porphyrio in the southern aisle and pheasants in the northern one.