It was a stunning archaeological find made by accident on a battlefield more than 100 years ago and today fighting continues over the rightful ownership of this priceless piece of art.During the Second Battle of Gaza in April 1917 an Anzac force had engaged the Ottoman army in near the town of Shellal on the site of an ancient Christian church.Australian signallers were establishing a communication station near a machine-gun post abandoned by retreating Turkish troops when they came upon a small patch of mosaic buried beneath the desert.  What the signallers had found at Besor Springs was a spectacular example of Byzantine craftsmanship created in the mid-sixth century under the reign of the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian. The Shellal Mosaic was uncovered by Australian soldiers during the Second Battle of Gaza in Palestine during World War I.

The priceless artefact had formed the floor Transport In Greece of a Christian church built in AD 561-562. What is left of the mosaic is housed in the Australian War Memorial  A member of the 6th Australian Light Horse Brigade is pictured preparing a section of the Shellal Mosaic for removal from where it was found in April 1917.  The mosaic was uncovered by troops establishing a communication post on an abandoned Turkish machinegun positionThe mosaic, laid in AD 561-562, was made up of thousands of hand-coloured tiles, or tesserae, covering 8.2m by 5.5m which had once formed the long-gone church's floor.The tesserae depicted classical iconography including grapevines, caged birds, baskets of fruit, flamingos, peacocks, a chalice, lions, a tiger and a goat.Word of the discovery soon spread through the ranks and drew the attention of Major General Granville Ryrie, commander of the 2nd Light Horse Brigade.Ryrie wrote to his wife that experts estimated the mosaic was worth £20,000 (more than $2million today) and there was only one other example like it in the world.    Now known as the Shellal Mosaic, this extraordinary artwork not only survived the battle but for the past eight decades has been housed in Canberra at the Australian War Memorial. How the Shellal Mosaic came to be displayed 14,000km from where it was found in what is now southern Israel is remarkable enough.

Where it really belongs has been debated for a century across three continents. Major General Granville Ryrie, commander of the 2nd Light Horse Brigade, wrote to his wife that experts estimated the mosaic was worth £20,000 (more than $2million today) and there was only one other piece like it in the world.

Light Horsemen are pictured at the dig site The mosaic was dug up from the Holy Land by modern day Crusaders amid noble claims it would be protected from destruction, but was shown little respect from the start. For a fortnight after first being unearthed the mosaic lay exposed.

In this time it was reduced in size by Australian Light Horse troops who grabbed small sections to take home.The souveniring stopped when Reverend William Maitland Woods, greece transportation the Anzac Mounted Division's senior chaplain and a keen amateur archaeologist, Getting around in Greece was brought in to conduct a proper excavation. For the next 14 days about 30 Australian and New Zealand soldiers under Woods's direction carefully removed the mosaic, using glue and plaster to secure it on canvas and packing it into more than 60 crates. The mosaic was made up of thousands of hand-coloured tessera, or tiles, covering 8.2 metres by 5.5 metres which had once formed the floor Getting around in Greece of a church.

The tiles depict grapevines, caged birds, baskets of fruit, flamingos, peacocks, a chalice, a lion, a tiger and a goatAlso located during the dig were human remains Woods incorrectly surmised belonged to St George, the Patron Saint of England, due to an inscription in the tiles. Some of the bones were quickly pilfered by Light Horsemen but further research revealed the church had been built 269 years after death of St George. Woods later gave what was left of the skeleton to a friend, Reverend Herbert Rose, who put the relics under the altar at St Anne's Anglican Church in Sydney's Strathfield where they remained until being reinterred in the sanctuary in 1986. The chaplain also gathered several baskets of tiles that had been washed away and had them fashioned into a replica of a memorial stone found above 'George'. He later gave the replica to a Light Horse officer, Colonel John Arnott, an heir to the biscuit-making fortune. Woods salvaged another section of mosaic and sent it back to St John's Anglican Cathedral in Brisbane.  Before the main mosaic was dismantled and packed in boxes, colour drawings were made so it could be accurately reassembled after the war. Some of the mosaic ended up in the floor of St Anne's Anglican Church at Strathfield (above), along with the skeletal remains of a priest found at the dig site in PalestineThe crates were then sent to Cairo where a diplomatic row broke out between Australia and Britain about which country should claim the mosaic as its own. Australian historian C.E.W.

Bean had already conceived the idea for a war memorial in his homeland, having witnessed the horrors of the Western Front.  The Shellal Mosaic was intended to be a showpiece of the proposed collection and the Australian military hierarchy lobbied the War Office in London to keep it as a trophy. 'Britain already has a history in traditions and relics and trophies extending back for centuries,' a letter from Australia's Department of Defence stated.

'Whereas Australia has none here other than what she draws from the mother country.'A nation is built upon pride of race and Transport In Greece now that Australia is making history of her own, she requires every possible relic associated with this to help educate her children in that national spirit.'   In December 1917 the War Office demanded the mosaic be shipped to England for safekeeping but the Australians believed once it was in British hands, they would never get it back.In February the next year Colonel Tom Griffiths, the acting commandant of the AIF in London, requested the mosaic be sent straight to Melbourne, claiming the fact it had been found by Australians amounted to 'special circumstances'.'An additional reason for submitting this request is that we are advised from Egypt that up to the present no war trophies have been collected or allotted to the Australian troops in Egypt,' Griffiths wrote.   Chaplain William Woods is pictured holding up the inscription from the Shellal Mosaic which reads in part:  'This temple with rich mosaics did decorate our most holy bishop...

and the most pious George, priest and sacristan, in the year 622 according to the era of Gaza... 'In March, Britain again demanded the mosaic be handed over, raising doubt it could be considered a trophy of war as it had not been captured from enemy troops.The Australians then asserted if Britain could justify keeping the Elgin Marbles - Greek sculptures looted from the Parthenon from 1801 to 1812 - then they should be allowed to have the Shellal Mosaic. Britain then noted it had previously 'taken exception' to acts of looting committed by the enemy and could be accused of hypocrisy if valuable foreign artefacts were seized by the empire as trophies of war. Bean became fed up with the fight over the mosaic and went public.Australian troops, he wrote, 'from generals to privates display the greatest enthusiasm in bringing out from battle more and more interesting exhibits for the people at home.''A difficulty has already arisen over the very finest trophy captured by the Australians...

the ancient mosaic pavement that was carefully preserved and guarded by the Light Horse.'Australia did not win the battle until after the war. The Shellal Mosaic, still packed in crates, left Egypt on the Wiltshire on Boxing Day 1918 and landed in Australia early the next year.  Britain raised doubt the mosaic could be considered a trophy of war as it was not captured from enemy troops.

The mosaic is pictured in packing boxes for greece transportation to AustraliaIt was displayed in Melbourne and Sydney before reaching its final home in Canberra where it was set into one of the foundational walls on the lower level of the War Memorial, which opened in 1941.