The Worcester Hunting Scene Mosaic was originally excavated in the villa at Daphne, in the city of Antioch. It was created around the early century A.D. The mosaic was made out of small painted tiles. There is no known artist of the mosaic. In the 1930’s the mosaic was brought to Worcester in five massive slabs, each weighing about 2,500 pounds.
The late Roman mosaic originally decorated a luxurious sixth-century reception room. Different hunting scenes are scattered over the surface of the mosaic. There are hunters battling tigers, lions, and bears in a woodland setting. In the center of the mosaic is a hunter. There are also hunters on horseback and hunters on foot attacking the animals with weapons such as swords, spears, and bow and arrows, weapons used by Parthians and Persians to the east. The mosaic has a border around the edge that is a good decorative element that adds to the piece of art. The border images, which face inward toward the center of the mosaic, depict hunters pursuing their prey through foliage of entwined acanthus leaves. While the dress style of the hunters in this work is that of Hellenistic Greece, the ornamental use of nature and the figures' stiff poses derive from the art of ancient Parthia. The animals, portrayed more naturalistically than the human figures, are used to fill compositional voids in a decorative fashion, resulting in the flat, two-dimensional creation characteristic of Antioch.
The Worcester Hunt mosaic, the largest floor mosaic brought to America. It now sits in the center of the Renaissance court in the Worcester Art Museum. It is still being put together.