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Back in the lab, in late June 2022, Estrada-Belli homed in on the chunks of jade, known to archaeologists as tesserae.

Beyond a fountain left dry in an empty hotel courtyard, a few tesserae glittered on a Soviet-era bus stop; it was impossible to tell what the original mosaic would have been.

One mosaic, depicting wide-hipped naked women cavorting with chimerical monsters, was composed of tessera a few millimeters wide, a level of intricacy seldom seen outside of Rome.

He made his own tiles, or tesserae, by pouring aluminum-colored acrylic gel into trays to dry, and then cutting it into pieces.

Not only do scientists not know how old the tesserae are, they do not know what they are.