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Recreation of the 'Three Graces' Mosaic

  • This is the tasksheet given to the transnational group working on the mosaic 'The Dance of the Three Graces' of the Archaeological Museum of Patras. It is followed by samples of the students' work. They followed the guidelines, identified the pattern and then reproduced it on the paper. The students used different colours and focused on different aspects of the pattern creating a wealth of different versions. They also tried to find the answer to the geometry question that they were given.

     

    'TheThree Graces' mosaic.

    Try to reproduce the pattern of the mosaic following the steps below.

    Activity 1: Five Overlapping Circles

    Materials: Paper, Straightedge, Compass, Pencil-Pen.

     

    1. Use a straightedge to draw one horizontal and one perpendicular line.  Mark the point of intersection as A. Place the compass point at point A and draw a circle. Mark the points that cross the lines B, Γ, Δ and E.
    2. Using points Β, Γ ,  Δ and E draw four more circles. All circles must have the same radius.

     

    Activity 2: Finding Geometric Shapes within Circles

    Materials: Straightedge, Pencil-Pen, four pages with five overlapping circles design made in Activity 1.

    Rosette 4 leaves:  Mark the common arcs of the four circles.

     

    Activity 3: Creating Square Grids from Circles

    Materials: Straightedge, three different colored pens, two pages with five overlapping grid of activity 1, tracing paper.

    Creating five overlapping circles grid

    In activity 1, if you had continued adding overlapping circles at the intersection points, the result would be a circle grid as shown in the five overlapping grid 

    1. Place a dot at the central point of each rosette.
    2. With the tracing paper over the circle grid, connect the dots horizontally and vertically to make a square grid.
    3. Usisg the  straightedge and a different colored pen, draw diagonal lines.

     

     

    What is the next step that you need to take in this last grid so that the pattern from the Three Graces mosaic appears?

     

     

    Recreation of the Mosaic using the same geometric shapes.

     

     

    Construction of pattern with grid (By hand and by Geogebra)

    We construct the geometric pattern using the follow underlying grid