Some of the best Byzantine Roman style mosaics can be seen in Sicily where Roger II built an magnificent medieval court to rival that in Constantinople. The medieval Crusades passed through Byzantine Constantinople on their way to the Holy Land, when the knights returned home they copied Byzantine mosaics in their great cathedrals. Apart from the Karye in Istanbul, the Byzantine mosaics are some of the finest Byzantine mosaics left in tact. The Byzantines conquered Italy for a short period and retained land around Ravenna long enough to build and decorate some great Basilicas with Byzantine Mosaics. One of the most iconic Byzantine mosaic images is that of Christ Pantocrator which was often used to decorated the ashes of Byzantine Roman basilicas. Typically Byzantine religious characters and scenes were depicted against a gold background. The Byzantines developed religious art that was based around icons which were two dimensional representations of God and the Christian pantheon that had to adhere to strict rules of representation.
During the early middle ages as the fabric of the western Roman Empire unravelled and disappeared, Byzantine Romans with their capital of at Constantinople were the only high civilisation left in the Mediterranean for a while. The Byzantine mosaic artisans took this skill and developed it into an art form that not only decorated Christian monument floors but was also used to make huge mosaics that decorated the walls and apse of churches. By the 5th century the best Roman mosaic craftsmen were from the Roman Province of Africa which was under Eastern Roman Byzantine control.
The Romans loved mosaics and used them as floor coverings throughout their villas as well as in their public buildings. The so called Roman Byzantine Empire runs roughly from the fall of the western Roman Empire in the 6th century to 1453 when the Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottomans. Picture photos images of Byzantine art, mosaics from Byzantine archaeological sites and Byzantine museum artefacts.
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