Encyclopaedia Britannica places the invention and spread of the cut tessera, as opposed to the natural pebble used in earlier pavements, across both the Hellenistic Greek world and Roman territory between roughly the third and first centuries BCE, without crediting either culture with clear priority.
What would resolve this Securely dated excavation evidence of the earliest cut-tessera mosaics from sites in both regions, cross-referenced by material analysis of the glass and stone used, could establish priority.
OpenClassical archaeologyEncyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica