Egypt became a province of the Persian or Achaemenid Empire in 526 BC. In the decades thereafter, some inhabitants of the Delta and Nile Valley rebelled against their Persian overlords. Though... Show moreEgypt became a province of the Persian or Achaemenid Empire in 526 BC. In the decades thereafter, some inhabitants of the Delta and Nile Valley rebelled against their Persian overlords. Though these rebellions are well known, they have been little studied. The present thesis provides an in-depth study of the first two rebellions of Persian-Period Egypt: the rebellion that began in ca. 521 BC, and which may have lasted until 519/18 BC, and the rebellion that began in ca. 487/86 BC, and which may have lasted until 485/84 BC. Show less
The Manichaeans of Kellis: Religion, Community, and Everyday Life is the first monograph examining daily life of a Manichaean community in the Roman Empire. It shows where and when a... Show moreThe Manichaeans of Kellis: Religion, Community, and Everyday Life is the first monograph examining daily life of a Manichaean community in the Roman Empire. It shows where and when a Manichaean affiliation mattered for ancient individuals and families, how it affected their personal letters, as well as their day-to-day interactions in a fourth-century village. The papyrological and archaeological evidence from the village of Kellis (modern Ismant el-Kharab) presents a unique perspective on this late antique religion that is otherwise mostly known for its theological and cosmological system. The specific setting of these finds, in particular having liturgical texts and personal letters from the same houses, offers many opportunities to reconstruct family networks, village interactions, as well as some of the underlying religious structures and practices. By pursuing a bottom-up approach, this study brings Manichaeism to life as a religion for ordinary people. It also engages with the larger theoretical debates concerning the role and position of “lived religion” in the academic Study of Religion, as well as current perspectives on the fundamental transformation of religion in Late Antiquity. Show less
In Egyptological literature, Necropolis journals are considered as records written on papyri and ostraca concerning the activities of the workmen or artisan community of Deir el-Medina in... Show moreIn Egyptological literature, Necropolis journals are considered as records written on papyri and ostraca concerning the activities of the workmen or artisan community of Deir el-Medina in Thebes. In these notes, written by the scribes in hieratic, information about the gang of workmen employed in the construction of the royal tombs in the Valleys of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens throughout the Ramesside period is given (c. 1300-1100 BC): their payments, presence or absence, collective administration, private problems concerning individual crew members, internal perturbations, visits by officials and incursions from “foreigners”. They have been labelled ‘Necropolis journal” ever since the first publication of such documents from the late 20th Dynasty by Botti and Peet 1928 (“Il Giornale della Necropoli di Tebe”). Since then, the idea of “a journal” and notably “an events journal” developed amongst Egyptologists and it appeared in almost all publications about the Deir el-Medina community, without really saying what in fact this would mean in practice. The question has arisen as to whether indeed this was a specific genre of document. Is it correct to define such notes as journals? Would they be considered journals from an ancient Egyptian point of view? Show less
This is a comprehensive study of Roman literary references to Egypt without preference for one particular period, author or subject, in contrast to most previous scholarship. In doing so, it shows... Show moreThis is a comprehensive study of Roman literary references to Egypt without preference for one particular period, author or subject, in contrast to most previous scholarship. In doing so, it shows that these references vary greatly, are context-dependent, and cannot be rightly understood when interpreted only within the normative and fixated frameworks of negative perceptions of contemporary Egypt or positive perceptions of Egypt’s antiquity. Moreover, this study suggests that approaching Roman literary references from the notion of Roman self-representationis useful for understanding and explaining their multifarious and sometimes contradictory messages. This observation does not imply that every reference to Egypt is therefore ‘Roman’. On the contrary, Egypt was occasionally framed as the Other. Yet the omnipresence of Egypt in Roman literature is of major importance when the Roman identity is at stake. Egypt, then, is neither only the Other, nor only the Self, but always a polyvalent notion in terms of identity-making. Show less
De dissertatie analyseert de aard en structuur van een oud-Egyptisch merktekensysteem en onderzoekt de relatie van deze niet-linguïstische vorm van visuele communicatie tot het... Show more De dissertatie analyseert de aard en structuur van een oud-Egyptisch merktekensysteem en onderzoekt de relatie van deze niet-linguïstische vorm van visuele communicatie tot het linguïstische systeem van schrift. Ook worden merktekensystemen als universeel fenomeen, waar in onze eigen maatschappij nog volop gebruik van wordt gemaakt, geanalyseerd. Show less
The legend of St. Aūr contained in the Naqlūn homily deals with the foundation history of the church of the archangel Gabriel at the monastery of Naqlūn in the province of Fayyum in Egypt. The... Show moreThe legend of St. Aūr contained in the Naqlūn homily deals with the foundation history of the church of the archangel Gabriel at the monastery of Naqlūn in the province of Fayyum in Egypt. The origins of this still existing monastery date back to the fifth century. After its composition in the eleventh century, the text remained in use till the present and spread all over Egypt and Ethiopia. Apart from the central date, 26 Ba’ūna, the text contains a number of other dates which reflect the liturgical calendar in use at Naqlūn. Moreover, four other homiletic texts and a hymn were identified, each related to the monastery of Naqlūn in a different way, forming evidence of the rich literary tradition that developed at this site from the eleventh century onwards. The texts recall into memory the great saints from earlier periods, such as St. Antony, the father of monasticism, and Samuel of Qalamūn, and link Naqlūn with several other monastic sites in the neighbourhood, giving Naqlūn a place in the history of Egyptian monasticism. The Middle Arabic language of all five texts, its style and its contents, are characteristic of Copto-Arabic hagiographic literature of the Middle Ages. Show less
This dissertation was written within the NWO VIDI project __Cultural innovation in a globalising society, Egypt in the Roman world__, (Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University) directed by dr.... Show moreThis dissertation was written within the NWO VIDI project __Cultural innovation in a globalising society, Egypt in the Roman world__, (Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University) directed by dr. Miguel John Versluys. The general aim of this project is devoted to the understanding of the different contexts in which Egypt as style, imagery, object, and text, was integrated in the Roman world. It thereby wishes to give Egypt its proper place within the process of Roman cultural innovation through carefully studying its material and textual remains in the context in which they were created and appropriated. Studies on the Roman perception of Egypt, concerning both textual and archaeological sources, generally approach Egypt from fixated and normative concepts. For example, Aegyptiaca have traditionally been interpreted within a framework of oriental cults or Egyptomania. The research project, in contrast, demonstrates that the dichotomy Rome versus Egypt should be approached with care. Besides the present thesis, three other PhD-dissertations are written within the scope of the project: Marike van Aerde, examining the role of Egyptian material culture in Augustan Rome, Sander M_skens, focusing on the material analysis of stone Aegyptiaca in Rome, and Maaike Leemreize, studying the Roman literary perceptions of Egypt. The purpose of this particular dissertation is to obtain a better image of the use, perception, and integration of Egyptian artefacts in domestic contexts, using Pompeii (1st century BC __ 1st century AD) as a case study. The houses of Pompeii yielded many objects that scholars nowadays would call Egyptian or Egyptianised artefacts and are subsumed under the denominator of Aegyptiaca. For the case of Pompeii, Aegyptiaca form a heterogeneous group of both imported and locally produced objects spread throughout the town, consisting of statuettes, imported sculptures, furniture, jewellery, or wall paintings. The most predominant interpretations drawn about the use of these objects have mainly been done on the basis of two accounts: they were interpreted as religious artefacts and explained in the context of the cults of Isis, or they were interpreted as exoticum. The interpretations have been drawn mostly without any contextual analysis or any theoretical underpinnings, and more problematic: the collecting and interpretation of artefacts have been based on modern scholarly perceptions of what Egypt entails, while we as scholars recognise something __Egyptian__ on different grounds than the people of Pompeii once did. The category Aegyptiaca in itself should be seriously questioned and the way Romans categorised should be scrutinised. The aim of this thesis therefore is to analyse the perception of these objects from a bottom up perspective, avoiding the a priori cultural labelling of Egyptian artefacts, but starting instead from the object itself with its main goal to contextualise and to give the finds meaning from within their original use-contexts. For this, methods derived from recent developments in object agency and relationality are used. Show less
As part of the VIDI 'Cultural innovation in a globalising society: Egypt in the Roman world', this research explores manifestations of Egypt in the material culture of Augustan Rome. This period... Show moreAs part of the VIDI 'Cultural innovation in a globalising society: Egypt in the Roman world', this research explores manifestations of Egypt in the material culture of Augustan Rome. This period was a crucial turning point for the urban landscape of Rome, which was characterised by cultural diversity. Previous studies focus primarily on Greek influences on the development of Augustan material culture, while Egypt remains neglected or simply categorised as exoticism or Egyptomania. This research, in contrast, set out to investigate whether or not __Egypt__ constituted an integral part of Augustan material culture during this period. By comprising for the first time a comprehensive and interpretative overview of manifestations of Egypt in Augustan Rome __including public monuments, paintings, and architectural elements as well as pottery, gems, and jewellery from private contexts__ a wide variety of case studies could be conducted, among which object reappraisals as well as new finds and contextual analyses were featured. By focusing on the archaeological data, this study demonstrates that Egypt was not an exotic Outsider in Rome, but constituted a remarkably diverse part of Roman material culture and the Augustan urban landscape, and was integrally part of the inherently flexible Augustan material culture repertoire. Show less
Nubia, located in what is now the northern part of the Republic of the Sudan and Upper Egypt, is among the most excavated corners of the world. Here, for over a century, there have been ongoing... Show moreNubia, located in what is now the northern part of the Republic of the Sudan and Upper Egypt, is among the most excavated corners of the world. Here, for over a century, there have been ongoing large-scale archeological rescue operations spurred on by an extensive program of damming the Nile, which is leading to the gradual disappearance of the territory under water. If this trend is not reversed, museums will become ‘the only and sole alternative’ venues where Nubian culture can still be admired and understood. The objective of this research is to analyze how, as a concept and archeological presence, ‘Nubia’ has been dealt with so far, and with what battles it has to contend now that museums are changing their identity and trying to adapt themselves to the political trend of this century which is all about conflict of identity. The ‘analytical tour’ of Nubian collections, presented in this research, includes museums within and beyond the boundaries of Nubia. It sheds light on how Nubia has been understood, created and silenced in the most important venues and smaller contexts and if and how modern Nubians are involved in this process Show less
Since 1996, a team from Leiden University, under the direction of Dr. Karel Innemée, carries out archaeological fieldwork in the Wadi al-Natrun, at a site north of the Monastery of Virgin Mary of... Show moreSince 1996, a team from Leiden University, under the direction of Dr. Karel Innemée, carries out archaeological fieldwork in the Wadi al-Natrun, at a site north of the Monastery of Virgin Mary of Baramūs. The systematic excavations have brought to light traces of a twin monastic compound including a central church, a square building and parts of the living quarters of the monks. The pottery dating to the period from the fourth until the ninth century is discussed in the PhD thesis entitled: Pots for Monks. Ceramics and Life in the Old Monastery of Baramūs in the Wādī al-Naṭrūn, Egypt (4th – 9th c.). This research may be regarded as a contribution to the study of Lower Egyptian monasticism, focusing on a particular, earthly, aspect of this movement: the material culture. The various ceramic types found in the site are presented and analysed in an effort to follow the activities taken place in the site during a period of five centuries. The importance of this study lies to the fact that for the first time a ceramic assemblage from a site in the Wādī al-Naṭrūn is published. Hopefully, it inaugurates a series of more elaborate and better reports on ceramic finds that the future fieldwork in the region will bring to light. Show less
Alexandria, the capital of Egypt during the Hellenistic and Roman periods is often hailed as the ancient cosmopolitan center of Mediterranean par excellence. Since the foundation of the city by... Show moreAlexandria, the capital of Egypt during the Hellenistic and Roman periods is often hailed as the ancient cosmopolitan center of Mediterranean par excellence. Since the foundation of the city by Alexander the Great in 331 BC, several traditions- along with their representatives, mainly Greek and Egyptian- coexisted and interacted with each other, resulting in a multiculturalism in Alexandrian society. However, in the past scholarship, the Greek cultural aspect of the city has been extensively discussed, while the Egyptian part has never been fully overviewed and interpreted. Such interpretations caused in a large extent, from the one side, a deformed picture of the Alexandria’s Greek-ness, almost equal to this of a Greek “colony” separated from Egypt –Alexandria ad Aegyptum- and from the other side a blur picture about the role of the Egyptian tradition in the Greco-Egyptian interaction and the life of Alexandrian society. However, over the last decade an alternative framework of understanding has been developed in several case studies, while discoveries from the underwater missions indicate that the city had much more Egyptian characteristics than hitherto believed. Therefore, the thesis aims to provide an overview and interpretation of the Egyptian elements and influences in Alexandria, focusing on issues of ideology, culture, identity and public life. In this way, it has been attempted to offer a better understanding of the multicultural life of Alexandria in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Show less
The dissertation examines late Ottoman intellectual history from the perspective of its confrontation with Western ideas through translations in the Ottoman capital Istanbul, and in a leading... Show moreThe dissertation examines late Ottoman intellectual history from the perspective of its confrontation with Western ideas through translations in the Ottoman capital Istanbul, and in a leading intellectual centre of the Ottoman Empire, namely Cairo. It consists of three chapters. The first chapter surveys the history of translation activity in the Ottoman Empire from its beginning to the nineteenth century and, particularly, focuses on the nineteenth century translation movement. The second chapter takes the Arabic and Turkish translations of Fénelon’s Les aventures de Télémaque as a case study and attempts to analyse the transmission of certain intellectual concepts through translations; while the third chapter concentrates on the reception of new ideas presented in the translations of the Télémaque and their impact on the process of reform. Show less
This book explores how and why farming and herding started in a particular time period in a particular region of Egypt. The earliest Neolithic farming in combination with herding in Egypt is known... Show moreThis book explores how and why farming and herding started in a particular time period in a particular region of Egypt. The earliest Neolithic farming in combination with herding in Egypt is known in the Fayum, which is a large oasis with a permanent lake in the Egyptian Western Desert. Farming and herding started at the transition from the Epipalaeolithic to Neolithic in the 6th millennium cal.BC owing to the arrival of Levantine domesticates. The Neolithic farmer-herders in the Fayum relied heavily on hunting and fishing, which had been the major subsistence activities since the Epipalaeolithic period. There are no remains of substantial dwellings to indicate that these farmer-herders lived a sedentary way of life. Previous researchers have thus asserted that the Fayum people were nomadic and moved seasonally. Lithic evidence obtained through new research suggests that the Fayum people were not nomadic but were tethered to lakeshores. The introduction of farming and herding would not have taken place in the Fayum without a lakeshore-tethered if not fully sedentary way of life. But the success of a farming-herding way of life in the Fayum would not have been possible without the reorganisation of mobility, which led to decreased moves of residential bases and increased logistical moves of individuals. Lithic evidence also suggests that the Fayum people kept exerting special efforts to make farming and herding a reliable subsistence and to maximise the yield. The introduction of farming and herding in the Fayum would have been a solution to mitigate growing population/resource imbalances when the climate became drier and more people had to aggregate around permanent water sources in the 6th millennium cal.BC. Show less
This thesis researches images of ‘the West’ in contemporary Egyptian non-fiction. These images – or: Occidentalisms - are found to have a history going back to the early nineteenth century, and are... Show moreThis thesis researches images of ‘the West’ in contemporary Egyptian non-fiction. These images – or: Occidentalisms - are found to have a history going back to the early nineteenth century, and are clearly related to political and social developments in Egypt and the wider Arab world, in which European and other Western powers have played a role. Occidentalisms are additionally found to be influenced by the ideological background from which the images are crafted. This is shown by a threefold analysis in which Islamist, Liberal and Nationalist-Leftist publications are analyzed and compared. Three contemporary intellectuals are made to stand as representatives of each ideological discourse, respectively: Muhammad Imara; Rida Hilal; and Galal Amin. Their work is researched in order to gain an in-depth understanding of how the West is imagined, whereas the other material provides a broad overview. The book ends with a comparison of Orientalism and Occidentalism. Show less
Several sites in the desert between the Nile and the Red Sea, in Egypt and Sudan, as well as in the Nubian Nile Valley have produced the sherds of decorated hand-made cups and bowls, now identified... Show moreSeveral sites in the desert between the Nile and the Red Sea, in Egypt and Sudan, as well as in the Nubian Nile Valley have produced the sherds of decorated hand-made cups and bowls, now identified as Eastern Desert Ware (EDW). Because of their small number and enigmatic origin these sherds have been mostly ignored. For this study, 290 EDW sherds were collected and investigated macroscopically, microscopically and by mass-spectrometry of both the ceramic matrix (ICP/MS) and the preserved organic residues (GC/MS). The results strongly suggest that EDW was made and used by the pastoral nomads living in the desert in the 4th-6th centuries CE. The former identification of these nomads with the Blemmyes of the written sources, however, must now equally strongly be rejected. Show less
This study of Mamluk metalwork fittings presents a hitherto largely ignored body of Mamluk metalwork objects, i.e. metal-faced doors, doorknockers, window grilles, and window shutters, and aims to... Show moreThis study of Mamluk metalwork fittings presents a hitherto largely ignored body of Mamluk metalwork objects, i.e. metal-faced doors, doorknockers, window grilles, and window shutters, and aims to trace their stylistic and technical development throughout the Mamluk period. In order to establish the uniqueness of Mamluk metalwork fittings, their relationship to pre-Mamluk metalwork traditions and to contemporary designs in other media is analysed. Moreover, the visual relationship between these metalwork artefacts and their immediate architectural context is assessed. Furthermore, attention is directed towards the various metalworking centres such as Cairo, Damascus, and Aleppo and their activities. This study is completed by a catalogue, comprehensively illustrated, comprising a description of embellished metalwork fittings predominantly found in situ in the major cities of the Mamluk realm. Show less
