Sixth-century Floor-Tiles from a Jewish Synagogue in the Middle East: The Roman Empire in the West fell to invading Germanic tribes, beginning with the Battle of Hadrianople in 378. The process took a couple of centuries, during which time the Roman Empire of the East, centered on Constantinople (a.k.a. Byzantium), did not fall until Mehmet II conquered it in 1453. This is one of very few instances in the last thousand years that an entire civilization had fallen.

These beautiful tiles came from the (still-ordered and flourishing) Byzantine-controlled Middle East. They are from a sixth-century synagogue near Haifa. Jews were severely persecuted by Rome because of the Jewish revolts of the First and Second centuries, but in the Later Roman Empire (after Constantine) and in the Byzantine Empire, Jewish people found a modicum of peace and prosperity, suggested by these attractive tiles. (Israel, Photo by M. Markowski)