Variety of Black and White Limestone Tesserae Used in Ancient Mosaics in Slovenia

This study concerns the microfacies characterization of white and black limestone tesserae from selected Roman floor mosaics in Slovenia, with the aim of defining their provenance. We investigated 42 tesserae from 15 different mosaics from the archaeological sites of Ljubljana, Izola, Mosnje, Ptuj, Crnomelj and Sentpavel, dated from the first century BC to the fifth century AD. Among the studied tesserae, 13 different microfacies were identified: eight black and five white. The most common were mudstones with ostracods (65% of black tesserae) and wacke-packstones with miliolids (85% of white tesserae). The majority of the identified facies can be found in the Cretaceous successions of the Dinaric Carbonate Platform in southwestern Slovenia, north-eastern Italy and south-eastern Croatia, suggesting a regional or imported origin of the tesserae.