The Mosaic Pavement – why mosaic, why pavement?
We are all familiar with the black and white chequered flooring of the Masonic lodge but where did it originate? There are a few theories…
The definition of ‘mosaic’ can mean two things [from the Cambridge Dictionary]:
1. a pattern or picture made using many small pieces of coloured stone or glass, or the activity or method of making these
2. a combination of many different parts forming one thing
It is no doubt the second definition fits Freemasonry perfectly, and also the premise that the black and white of the floor is “emblematic of human life, chequered with good and evil”.
In the Entered Apprentice degree a plethora of symbolism is showered on the initiate and during that ceremony the floor represents that of King Solomon’s Temple.
Duality, the symbolism of opposites is something that is prominently reflected in Masonic teachings – dark and light, the sun and the moon, night and day – subduing our passions, studying our contradictory nature; these are the lessons which Masonry strives to teach us.
Texts of the eighteenth century have reference to the Masonic pavement as being related to Moses (mosaic legend), or King Solomon – the tiling on which the priest walked in the Temple.
In fact the floor of the Temple was recorded as being of wood – “And he built the walls of the house within with boards of cedar, both the floor of the house, and the walls of the ceiling: and he covered them on the inside with wood, and covered the floor of the house with planks of fir” (1 Kings 6:15 KJV).
Pritchard mentions the Mosaick pavement in “Masonry Dissected” (1730) as being both the floor of the lodge and the paving stones of the temple, but there is no concrete evidence to connect it to these origins.
A.C.F. Jackson, in “A Glossary of the Craft and Holy Royal Arch Rituals of Freemasonry” (Lewis Masonic, 2008) writes thus:
Mosaic, in the Edinburgh Register Ms 1696, and some other early Exps there is a “square pavement” as a “jewel of the lodge”.
The words Mosaick pavement appear in the Wilkinson Ms 1727 and MD 1730, as moveable jewels “for the master to draw his design upon”, thus suggesting some form of tracing board.
This seems reasonable and would fit in with the practise of the candidate obliterating the floor drawings after his initiation.
Something that continued certainly until 1779. A special squared carpet for lodge seems unlikely, while lodges use Taverns as their meeting places.
Thus, the question had the early mosaick pavement turned into the present lodge squared carpet is unsolved.
Several theories exist, but the present use of the latter seems to have started with Preston.
However, see FGC. 132 and Mackey. The word probably comes from the GK. Mouseton (the place consecrated to the nine muses). C Lat. Musa. Or mousa (muse) to mosaicus (a pavement of small stones in a pattern, Italian musaico. OF mosaique. To ME. No connection with Moses.
There is a further historical slant to the use of the Masonic term “Mosaic Pavement”. Albert G. Mackey explores this in his “Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry and its Kindred Sciences”:
Mosaic work consists properly of many little stones of different colors united together in patterns to imitate a painting.
It was much practiced among the Romans, who called it museum, whence the Italians get their musaico, the French their mosaique, and we our mosaics.
The idea that the work is derived from the fact that Moses used a pavement of colored stones in the tabernacle has been long since exploded by etymologists.
The Masonic tradition is that the floor of the Temple of Solomon was decorated with a mosaic pavement of black and white stones. There is no historical evidence to substantiate this statement.
Samuel Lee, however, in his diagram of the Temple, represents not only the floors of the building, but of all the outer courts, as covered with such a pavement.
The Masonic idea was perhaps first suggested by this passage in the Gospel of Saint John xix, 13, “When Pilate, therefore, heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment-seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.”
The word here translated Pavement is in the original Lithostroton [Lithostrōtos lit.’stone pavement’, from lithos ‘stone’ and strōtos ‘covered’], the very word used by Pliny to denote a mosaic pavement.
The Greek word, as well as its Latin equivalent is used to denote a pavement formed of ornamental stones of various colors, precisely what is meant by a Mosaic Pavement.
There was, therefore, a part of the Temple which was decorated with a mosaic pavement. The Talmud informs us that there was such a pavement in the Conclave where the Grand Sanhedrin held its sessions.
By a little torsion of historical accuracy, the Freemasons have asserted that the ground floor of the Temple was a mosaic pavement, and hence as the Lodge is a representation of the Temple, that the floor of the Lodge should also be of the same pattern.
The mosaic pavement is an old symbol of the Order. It is met with in the earliest Rituals of the eighteenth century.
It is classed among the ornaments of the Lodge in combination with the indented tassel and the blazing star.
Its parti-colored stones of black and white have been readily and appropriately interpreted as symbols of the evil and good of human life.
The Judgment on the Gabbatha by James Tissot, c. 1890. James Tissot – Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum
IMAGE LINKED: Brooklyn Museum Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Depiction of the gateway of the eastern forum of Aelia Capitolina and original Roman pavement. The vertical lines show where the wall of the Convent of the Sisters of Zion currently extends. The horizontal line shows the modern street level. The stairs led to the Antonia Fortress. By Ernest F. Beaumont – Glimpses of Bible Lands: The Cruise of the Eight Hundred to Jerusalem,
IMAGE LINKED: wikimedia Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry and its Kindred Sciences
By: Albert G Mackey
Volume one of two volumes. Albert Mackey’s “An Encyclopedia of Freemasonry” is one of the most significant and well-known of Masonic works.
Its usefulness and aid to Masonic students worldwide has been the cornerstone of its popularity since it was first published in 1873.
This photographic reproduction of the 1916 Edition was revised and expanded by William J. Hughan & Edward L. Hawkins and includes a 2015 Foreword by Michael R. Poll. This is a must-have work for all students of Freemasonry.
Masonry Dissected
By: Samuel Pritchard
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages.
Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world’s literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
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