Houses In Graeco Roman Egypt

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

More is known about everyday life in Graeco-Roman Egypt than in any other Greek or Roman territory, owing to the thousands of papyri discovered in the rubbish tips of ancient towns at the beginning of the twentieth century. The papyri, which include accounts, personal letters, complaints and legal documents, enable the archaeologist to see the artefacts and monuments in their social context, in a way that is impossible when examining any other ancient civilisation. We can tell how everyday objects, which were well preserved in the dry sands of Egypt, were used.

This book draws together a wide range of evidence across disciplines to show how the ordinary people of Roman Egypt experienced and enacted change.