This book examines different forms of ritual activities performed in houses of Graeco- Roman Egypt. It draws on the rich archaeological record of rural housing and evidence from literature or papyrological references to both urban and rural housing.
This book explores the visual narratives of a group of decorated tombs from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt (c.300 BCE-250 CE). The author contextualizes the tombs within their social, political, and religious context and considers how the multicultural population of Graeco-Roman Egypt chose to negotiate death and the afterlife.
This volume considers the relationship between architectural form and different layers of identity assertion in Roman Egypt. It stresses the sophistication of the concept of identity, and the complex yet close association between architecture and identity.
How did Greco-Roman Egyptian society perceive women’s bodies and how did it acknowledge women’s reproductive functions? Detailing women’s lives in Greco-Roman Egypt this monograph examines understudied aspects of women's lives such as their coming of age, social and religious taboos of menstruation and birth rituals. It investigates medical, legal and religious aspects of women's reproduction, using both historical and archaeological sources, and shows how the social status of women and new-born children changed from the Dynastic to the Greco-Roman period. Through a comparative and interdisciplinary study of the historical sources, papyri, artefacts and archaeological evidence, Becoming a Woman and Mother in Greco-Roman Egypt shows how Greek, Roman, Jewish and Near Eastern cultures impacted on the social perception of female puberty, childbirth and menstruation in Greco-Roman Egypt from the 3rd century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D.
Papers present research from different regions ranging from ancient Mauritania, through Africa, Egypt, Cyprus, Palestine, Syria, as well as sites in Crimea and Georgia. Topics include: topography, architecture, interiors and décor, religious syncretism, the importance of ancient texts, pottery studies and conservation.
Roman Egypt is a critical area of interdisciplinary research, which has steadily expanded since the 1970s and continues to grow. Egypt played a pivotal role in the Roman empire, not only in terms of political, economic, and military strategies, but also as part of an intricate cultural discourse involving themes that resonate today - east and west, old world and new, acculturation and shifting identities, patterns of language use and religious belief, and the management of agriculture and trade. Roman Egypt was a literal and figurative crossroads shaped by the movement of people, goods, and ideas, and framed by permeable boundaries of self and space. This handbook is unique in drawing together many different strands of research on Roman Egypt, in order to suggest both the state of knowledge in the field and the possibilities for collaborative, synthetic, and interpretive research. Arranged in seven thematic sections, each of which includes essays from a variety of disciplinary vantage points and multiple sources of information, it offers new perspectives from both established and younger scholars, featuring individual essay topics, themes, and intellectual juxtapositions.
The period of Egyptian history from its rule by the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty to its incorporation into the Roman and Byzantine empires has left a wealth of evidence for the lives of ordinary men and women. Texts (often personal letters) written on papyrus and other materials, objects of everyday use and funerary portraits have survived from the Graeco-Roman period of Egyptian history. But much of this unparalleled resource has been available only to specialists because of the difficulty of reading and interpreting it. Now eleven leading scholars in this field have collaborated to make available to students and other non-specialists a selection of over three hundred texts translated from Greek and Egyptian, as well as more than fifty illustrations, documenting the lives of women within this society, from queens to priestesses, property-owners to slave-girls, from birth through motherhood to death. Each item is accompanied by full explanatory notes and bibliographical references.
During the Graeco-Roman period, the Fayum became one of the most productive agricultural regions of Egypt and was the focus of a systematic settlement and cultivation program. This volume contains the conferences given at the third international symposion for Fayum studies held at Freudenstadt/ Schwarzwald from May 29 to June 1, 2007. Egyptologists, papyrologists and archaeologists from all over the world joined in order to report their current research and to contribute with their special point of view in enhancing and completing our picture of the Fayum in the Graeco-Roman period. Das Fayum entwickelte sich in der griechisch-romischen Zeit zu einer der landwirtschaftlich produktivsten Regionen Agyptens und stand im Mittelpunkt einer gezielten Besiedlungs- und Bewirtschaftungspolitik. Der Band beinhaltet die Vortrage des mittlerweile 3. internationalen Fayum-Symposions, das vom 29. Mai bis 1. Juni 2007 in Freudenstadt im Schwarzwald stattfand. Agyptologen, Papyrologen und Archaologen aus aller Welt kamen zusammen, um aus ihrer aktuellen Forschung zu berichten und durch Beitrage aus dem Blickwinkel ihrer verschiedenen Disziplinen dazu beizutragen, unser Bild des Fayum in der griechisch-romischen Zeit weiter zu vervollstandigen.
This collection of papers, arising from the conference series Late Antique Archaeology, examines the housing in the late antique period, through thematic and regional syntheses, complemented by cases studies and two bibliographic essays.