This richly illustrated book presents a history of Egyptian late antique–early Byzantine (Coptic) art in its international stylistic, social and intellectual context.

Located in the small kingdom of Commagene at the upper Euphrates, the late Hellenistic monument of Nemrud Dağ (c.50 BC) has been undeservedly neglected by scholars. Qualified as a Greco-Persian hybrid instigated by a lunatic king, this fascinating project of bricolage has been written out of history. This volume redresses that imbalance, interpreting Nemrud Dağ as an attempt at canon building by Antiochos I in order to construct a dynastic ideology and social order, and proving the monument's importance for our understanding of a crucial transitional phase from Hellenistic to Roman. Hellenistic Commagene therefore holds a profound significance for a number of discussions, such as the functioning of the Hellenistic koine and the genesis of Roman 'art', Hellenism and Persianism in antiquity, dynastic propaganda and the power of images, Romanisation in the East, the contextualising of the Augustan cultural revolution, and the role of Greek culture in the Roman world.

How does a culture become Christian, especially one that is heir to such ancient traditions and spectacular monuments as Egypt? This book offers a new model for envisioning the process of Christianization by looking at the construction of Christianity in the various social and creative worlds active in Egyptian culture during late antiquity. As David Frankfurter shows, members of these different social and creative worlds came to create different forms of Christianity according to their specific interests, their traditional idioms, and their sense of what the religion could offer. Reintroducing the term “syncretism” for the inevitable and continuous process by which a religion is acculturated, the book addresses the various formations of Egyptian Christianity that developed in the domestic sphere, the worlds of holy men and saints’ shrines, the work of craftsmen and artisans, the culture of monastic scribes, and the reimagination of the landscape itself, through processions, architecture, and the potent remains of the past. Drawing on sermons and magical texts, saints’ lives and figurines, letters and amulets, and comparisons with Christianization elsewhere in the Roman empire and beyond, Christianizing Egypt reconceives religious change—from the “conversion” of hearts and minds to the selective incorporation and application of strategies for protection, authority, and efficacy, and for imagining the environment.

Collected Studies CS1070 The present book collects 31 articles that Jacques van der Vliet, a leading scholar in the field of Coptic Studies (Leiden University / Radboud University, Nijmegen), has published since 1999 on Christian inscriptions from Egypt and Nubia. These inscriptions are dated between the third/fourth and the fourteenth centuries, and are often written in Coptic and/or Greek, once in Latin, and sometimes (partly) in Arabic, Syriac or Old Nubian. They include inscriptions on tomb stones, walls of religious buildings, tools, vessels, furniture, amulets and even texts on luxury garments. Whereas earlier scholars in the field of Coptic Studies often focused on either Coptic or Greek, Van der Vliet argues that inscriptions in different languages that appear in the same space or on the same kind of objects should be examined together. In addition, he aims to combine the information from documentary texts, archaeological remains and inscriptions, in order to reconstruct the economic, social and religious life of monastic or civil communities. He practiced this methodology in his studies on the Fayum, Wadi al-Natrun, Sohag, Western Thebes and the region of Aswan and Northern Nubia, which are all included in this book.

Nonnus of Panopolis (fifth century CE) composed two poems once thought to be incompatible: the Dionysiaca, a mythological long epic with a marked interest in astrology, the occult, the paradox and not least the beauty of the female body, and a pious and sublime Paraphrase of the Gospel of St John. Little is known about the man, to whom sundry identities have been attached. The longer work has been misrepresented as a degenerate poem or as a mythological handbook. The Christian poem has been neglected or undervalued. Yet, Nonnus accomplished an ambitious plan, in two parts, aiming at representing world-history. This volume consists mainly of the Proceedings of the First International Conference on Nonnus held in Rethymno, Crete in May 2011. With twentyfour essays, an international team of specialists place Nonnus firmly in his time's context. After an authoritative Introduction by Pierre Chuvin, chapters on Nonnus and the literary past, the visual arts, Late Antique paideia, Christianity and his immediate and long-range afterlife (to modern times) offer a wide-ranging and innovative insight into the man and his world. The volume moves on beyond stereotypes to inaugurate a new era of research for Nonnus and Late Antique poetics on the whole.

Presenting a large body of evidence for the first time, this book offers a comprehensive treatment of Nubian architecture, sculpture, and minor arts in the period between 300 BC-AD 250. It focuses primarily on the Nubian response to the traditional pharaonic, Hellenistic/Roman, Hellenizing, and “hybrid” elements of Ptolemaic and Roman Egyptian culture. The author begins with a history of Nubian art and a critical survey of the literature on Ptolemaic and Roman Egyptian art. Special chapters are then devoted to the discussion of the Egyptian-Greek interaction in the arts of Ptolemaic Egypt, the place of Egyptian Hellenistic and Hellenizing art within the oikumene, the pluralistic visual world of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, as well as on the specific genre of terracotta sculpture. Utilizing examples from Meroe City and Musawwarat es Sufra, the author argues that cultural transfer from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt to Nubia resulted in an inward-focused adaptation. Therefore, the resulting Nubian art from this period expresses only those aspects of Egyptian and Greek art that are compatible with indigenous Nubian goals.

This book brings together leading experts in the field of ancient synagogue studies to discuss the current issues and emerging trends in the study of synagogues in ancient Palestine. Divided into four thematic units, the different contributions apply archaeological, textual, historical and art historical methodologies to questions related to ancient synagogues. Part One addresses issues related to the origins and early development of synagogues up to 200 CE. The contributions provide different explanations to the alleged lack of evidence for synagogues built in the second and third centuries CE and ask how much continuity or change there is between the late Second Temple and late Roman/early Byzantine synagogues. Part Two deals with architecture and dating of ancient synagogues. It gives an overview of all synagogues found so far, approaches the dating of Galilean synagogues in the light of the recently-exposed synagogue at Huqoq, and provides a stylistic re-evaluation of the Capernaum synagogue decoration. Part three examines leadership, power and daily life in late antique synagogue contexts, illustrating non-monumental inscriptions, amulets and dining in synagogue contexts as well as the role of individual benefactors. Section four contextualizes synagogue art. An overview of synagogue mosaics in late antique Palestine is complemented with reinterpretations of the mosaics two synagogues. The section also offers a discussion of the appearance of the menorah.