Noah Builds the Ark
Mosaic
Palatine Chapel, Palermo, Sicily
The panel on the left illustrates Genesis 5:31b, noe vero cum quingentorum esset annorum genuit sem cham et iaphet, "And Noe, when he was five hundred years old, begot Sem, Cham, and Japheth." The three boys group around the throne-like chair of their mother.
On the right Noah receives his charge from God and the boys set to work building the ark. The charge is fac tibi arcam de lignis levigatis, "Make thee an ark of timber planks" (6:14a). As is common in medieval art, the ark features a church-like structure, in this case complete with a lead roof, pediment, arches, and clerestory windows.
On top of the "church" one man is driving a roofing nail with an iron hammer. On the ground below the man on the left is using an augur to make holes for the wooden pegs that hold the structure together. (Instead of the hammer shown above, the pegs will be driven with a wooden mallet.) The man on the right is using a hand plane to smooth the surface of a board (mac Alasdair, 4-7).
The Palatine Chapel mosaics are from the 12th century, but at least the left side of this panel looks as if it may have been created during the restorations of the 19th century. The faces and bodies are carefully modeled, the clothing drapes realistically, and the domesticity of the scene has a very 19th-century flavor. On the right side, the upper part of Noah's figure may also be a restoration.
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Photographed at the site by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.