The Lod mosaics traveled the world. But how did they get from the floor of a Roman villa in Israel to the United States, France, and Russia?

When the artworks were discovered, there wasn’t enough money to finish digging them up. So archaeologists covered the mosaics again with dirt. That helped protect them from damage.

In 2009, the floor was finally completely excavated (dug up). Officials had decided to build a museum on the site. Here’s what they did with the mosaic:

1. Workers cleaned the tesserae (tiles) carefully. Roman mosaic tiles were made of stone, glass, or ceramic.

2. They took photos to document what the mosaic looked like.

3. Fabric was glued to the mosaic. That helped keep the tesserae in place.

4. The mosaic is big. So team members had to divide it into smaller pieces to remove it from the ground. They tried to make as few pieces as possible.

5. Workers shoved crowbars underneath. They levered pieces up from the foundation carefully.

6. The archaeologists made new discoveries too. They found lines and paint used as a guide to place the tesserae. They also found hand and foot prints of the craftsmen who created the mosaic.

7. The pieces were transported to a laboratory on wooden platforms. There conservators restored the mosaics. They cleaned the tiles again and added new grout.

8. The mosaics traveled around the world. People viewed them at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, and The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Now the mosaics will stay in one place. People from all over will come to them.