Egypt and Empire
The Formation of Religious Identity after Rome
Edited by E.R. O'Connell
Across Eurasia and North Africa in the First Millennium AD, empires rose and fell, each adopting a universalizing faith which distinguished it broadly from its neighbors. In Egypt, our sources are particularly rich, owing to the land’s arid climate and the unparalleled survival not only of stone, ceramic and metalwork, but also of organic material such as textiles, wood and manuscripts found on papyrus, parchment and paper. This volume brings together over a dozen of the world’s leading specialists to explore the dialectical interplay between empire and religious identity through a series of case studies from Egypt.
Across Eurasia and North Africa in the First Millennium AD, empires rose and fell, each adopting a universalizing faith which distinguished it broadly from its neighbours. In Egypt, our sources are particularly rich, owing to the land’s arid climate and the unparalleled survival not only of stone, ceramic and metalwork, but also of organic material such as textiles, wood and manuscripts found on papyrus, parchment and paper. This volume brings together over a dozen of the world’s leading specialists to explore the dialectical interplay between empire and religious identity through a series of case studies from Egypt. Evidence from Egypt suggests that it was precisely in the context of empire that ‘religious identity’ emerged as a distinctive marker. Using the unrivalled abundance and variety of surviving material culture, this volume explores the formation, renegotiation and reconstitution of religious identities from the Roman period forward. Whereas Egypt’s ‘pharaonic’ millennia (c. 3000-30 BC) have been studied as a coherent whole, later eras are often studied as fragments. Egypt and Empire offers a different approach by covering together periods that are usually treated separately in different academic disciplines.
- Edited by E.R. O’Connell
Other Titles in this Series
The Fourth Cataract and Beyond
Proceedings of the 12th International Conference for Nubian Studies
Volume 1
Faience Figurines in their Archaeological and Museological Contexts (Egypt, Nubia, and the Levant, 2100-1550 BC)
The Catalogue Raisonné
Volume 19
Miniature Forms as Transformative Thresholds
Faience Figurines in Middle Bronze Age Egypt, Nubia and the Levant (2100-1550 BC)
Volume 7
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