egypt as metaphor...two egypt as metaphor visual bilingualism in the monumental tombs of ancient...

two

Egypt as Metaphor

Visual Bilingualism in the Monumental Tombs of Ancient Alexandria

I n 331 bce on a limestone ridge bounded by nile-fed lake mareotis to thesouth and the Mediterranean Sea to the north Alexander the Great foundedthe Egyptian city that was to bear his name309 Alexandria was conceived as aGreek city and so it remained throughout the period of Roman rule Poised onthe edge of Egypt it became known as ldquoAlexandria ad Aegyptumrdquo Alexandriaby (or near) Egypt As the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt and the seat of the prefectafter Egyptrsquos conquest by Rome Alexandria remained culturally aloof from otherpolities of Graeco-Roman Egypt and its tombs reflect its special status

Newly forged Alexandria was a fabricated polity310

Constitutionally fashioned as a Greek polis it claimed thepolitical machinery integral to a democracy despite theautocratic reality of regal power311 The city boasted a cit-izen body (the demos) a civic law code an assembly (eccle-sia) a council (boule) a board of magistrates (prytanies)and a body of elders (gerousia)312 and its citizens wereaccorded a fictive past with their division ndash modeled onAthens ndash into phyles demes and phratries313 Upon his con-quest of Egypt Augustus reorganized the demes314 andunder Roman rule the tribes (phyles) were renamed315

but throughout the period of Roman rule tribal anddeme membership still constituted the basis for Alexan-drian citizenship Alexandrian citizenship as a hereditaryinstitution thus played a defining role in Graeco-RomanEgypt Alexandrian citizens (as those of the Greek citiesof Ptolemais and Naukratis and after its foundation byHadrian Antinoopolis) enjoyed special economic andlegal privileges They were for example exempt fromtaxes that burdened other inhabitants of Roman Egyptand that also acted as a social determinative to designatethe othersrsquo lower status316 Most significant howeverwas that until the third century ce Alexandrian citizenswere the only non-Roman inhabitants of Egypt whocould claim the prestige of Roman citizenship317 These

privileges which positioned the citizens of Alexandria asa superior social class permitted Alexandrian tombs todevelop differently from other tombs in Graeco-RomanEgypt on the one hand and on the other were keenlyrecognized by Greek inhabitants of the Egyptian chorawho expressed their conversance with the social hierar-chy in the decoration of their own monumental tombsas discussed in Chapter Three

In addition to its Greek system of governance Alexan-dria offered a Classically inspired physical presence Laidout on a Greek Hippodamian plan318 the city containedthe Greek elements of an agora (Arr An 315) a the-ater a council hall (bouleuterion)319 law courts a gymna-sium and by the Roman period a hippodrome and anarmory (Philo Flacc 92) as well as temples to Greek gods(Strabo 1719ndash10) Though Romersquos conquest of Egyptchanged both the political administration of the polityand the governance of Alexandria320 and the ensuingcenturies of Roman rule added monuments that pro-vided a contemporary cast to the urban landscape ofthe city the language ethnic priority intellectual lifeand identity of the city remained culturally Greek321 Itsfamed library founded under Ptolemy I Soter (3054ndash283 bce) drew intellectuals to the city as did its daughterlibraries in the Caesareum and the Serapeum and lecture

50

httpsdoiorg101017CBO9781107256576003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore IP address 5439106173 on 04 Jun 2020 at 233003 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms

EGYPT AS METAPHOR

halls discovered in the center of the city signal a contin-ued intellectual presence in Alexandria through the LateAntique322

In accordance with the classicizing intellectual andphysical vista of the city Alexandriarsquos monumental tombsalso assume a Graeco-Roman visage Deeply cut intothe nummulitic limestone Ptolemaic-period tombs aremultiroom buildings accessed by a staircase and often builtaround an open courtyard so that they were easily visiblefrom above Though in its aggregate the Alexandrian-type tomb follows no earlier Greek model it neverthelessincorporates conceptual inspiration from Macedonia323

klinai for example ndash which trebled in Greece as a bedbier324 and banqueting couch ndash are cut to lay out thedead permitting them to join in the funerary banquetWalls of Alexandrian tombs are decorated in both theGreek zone style325 and the Greek masonry style326 andarchitectural components ndash columns capitals and entab-lature friezes ndash all follow Greek architectural principles

Roman-period Alexandrian tombs conform to thePtolemaic model They too are multiroom tombs rockcut and entered through a staircase Roman-periodtombs however often dispense with the kline and itsniche and substitute instead a triclinium-shaped chamber(or chambers) with trabeated or arctuated niches formedby cutting Roman-type sarcophagi into the fabric of theroom Only in the Roman Imperial period and in Latin isa bed differentiated from a banqueting couch ndash lectus cubic-ularis for the one and lectus triclinaris for the other ndash 327

so the introduction of the triclinium-shaped chamber inRoman-period tombs does not merely indicate a con-temporary emendation of the banqueting metaphor butreflects a semantic change ensuring that a banquetingcouch is recognized as the intended allusion

Despite this inherent classicism an innate self-confidence in their Hellenic identity born from theirprivileged social position in Ptolemaic Egypt early per-mitted Alexandrians to admit Egyptian elements intotheir burial monuments Almost from their inception inthe late-fourth or early-third century bce Alexandrianmonumental tombs incorporate Egypt Loculi the longnarrow burial slots for inhumation and cremation burialsthat perforate the walls of even the earliest Alexandriantombs have their genesis in Egypt328 and at least as earlyas the third century bce figurative Egyptian elementsinvade the otherwise Classical fabric of the monumentaltomb During the period of Roman rule Alexandriansadopted further Egyptian architectural elements motifs

narratives and signs to express their own Greek eschato-logical necessities

Greeks early recognized the primacy Egypt held inmortuary religion and its authority is encapsulated byHerodotus329 In Book II of his Histories Herodotus whovisited Egypt between 449 and 430 bce330 frequentlyprivileges the antiquity of Egyptians over that of Greeksespecially in the realm of religion ldquo[Egyptians] arebeyond measure religious more than any other nationrdquoHerodotus (II37) writes He adds (Hdt II4) that Egyp-tians were the first to use the term twelve gods331 thatmany of the names of Greek gods come from Egypt (HdtII50 52 54) including that of Herakles (Hdt II43)332

and that from Egypt came the oracle of Zeus at Dodonain Greece (Hdt II54) Herodotus (II49) credits the ori-gin of Dionysiac ritual to Egypt as well as divinationfrom the entrails of sacrificial animals (Hdt II58) It wasthe Egyptians Herodotus (II64) continues who first for-bade intercourse with women in temples obviating thehieros gamos and the more generalized temple prostitutionof their Eastern neighbors333 a proscription encapsulatedin the Greek myth of Tydeus and Ismene

Herodotus (II85ndash89) devotes four chapters to Egyp-tian mourning customs and embalming and says thatEgyptians were the first to teach that the human soulis immortal (II123)334 The general privileging of Egyptin all matters religious regardless of the veracity of theseclaims and the antiquity claimed by Herodotus for Egyptin these matters instructed the educated Greek popula-tion and strongly informs the incorporation of Egyptianelements into the decoration of the monumental tombsof Alexandrian Greeks In Alexandria the inclusion ofEgyptian elements into an otherwise classicizing tombacts as a further means of ensuring a blessed afterlife forthe inhabitants of these tombs

PTOLEMAIC-PERIOD TOMBS

The earliest Ptolemaic tomb that best exemplifies theunderlying model for Alexandrian tombs as well as theirburgeoning bilingualism is Hypogeum A in the cemeteryat Chatby335 which hugs the coast just beyond the puta-tive line of the eastern wall of ancient Alexandria Onlyslightly later than the tomb of Petosiris at Tuna el-GebelHypogeum A is probably to be dated no later than 280bce336 It is the earliest fully realized monumental tombextant in Alexandria and it is directly ancestral to all laterAlexandrian monumental tombs Like later Alexandrian

51


VISUALIZING THE AFTERLIFE IN THE TOMBS OF GRAECO-ROMAN EGYPT

21 Alexandria Hypogeum A Plan (after Adriani 1966 pl 44 fig 168)

tombs it held multiple burials which stretched over anumber of generations

Hypogeum A

Hypogeum A assumes the form of a multichamberedtomb accessible by a stairway (no longer extant) cutdown through the living rock (Fig 21) It is architec-turally articulated and illusionistically painted to re-createa monumental building with a court open to the skyaround which the burial chambers and subsidiary roomsare arranged and its walls are embellished in both Greekmasonry- and zone-style337 Both types of wall decora-tion divide the surface into a low plinth a high zoneof orthostats a narrow string course a main zone ofisodomic blocks and a narrow upper frieze338 and almostall the architectonically treated walls in Ptolemaic-periodAlexandrian tombs conform to this general type as ndashmore surprisingly ndash do many Roman-period tombs inthe chora (see Chapter Five)

Though the ultimate form of Hypogeum A finds nomodel in Greece itself the individual architectural ele-ments of which it is composed are of pure Greek descentThe walls of the anteroom preceding the open court aretreated in the plastic Greek masonry-style (Fig 22) The

plinth is incised vertically to indicate individual blocksand above it yellow orthostats are capped with a bluestring course carved in low relief and a white paintedfrieze The walls of the anteroom and the court are bothenlivened by engaged Doric half-columns carved withtheir lower sections plain and their upper sections fluted ndashan early example of the horizontally divided partiallyfluted column339 Strikingly and preserved in no otherAlexandrian tomb the interstices between the columnswere painted light blue to simulate an airy vista and toadd further veracity to the trompe lrsquooeil effect garlandswere painted as strung between the columns of the courtand birds were depicted fluttering against the blue sky340

Even more strikingly on the south wall of the anteroomfictive windows with shutters painted yellow against theblue enliven the wall (See Fig 22) The stone around thelsquowindowrsquo itself is cut obliquely permitting the secondlsquoshutterrsquo to be placed at a diagonal angle to the stonersquossurface341 and giving the impression that someone hasjust lazily pushed a shutter ajar thus populating the unin-habited anteroom with a human agent similarly to theempty court having been brought alive by painted birds

The long walls of the burial room are each punctuatedby five engaged Ionic columns visually supporting anentablature capped with dentils near the springing of the

52


EGYPT AS METAPHOR

22 Alexandria Hypogeum A Reconstruction of the South Wall of the Anteroom (after Adriani1966 pl 45 fig 171)

low-vaulted ceiling On the far short wall of the rooman Ionic doorway leads into the kline chamber The lat-ter holds two kline-sarcophagi set at right angles to oneanother342 an arrangement known from Macedoniantombs and others343 but so far exceptional in Alexan-dria Greek dining rooms (unlike Roman triclinia) admit-ted a varying number of couches which were arrangedaround the periphery of the room ndash set head to footabutting one another and fitted into the corners of theroom ndash a model followed by the two kline-sarcophagi inHypogeum A344

Despite the Greek architectural envelope of Hypo-geum A however and the Greek kline-sarcophagi thetombrsquos primary burial room and its somewhat latersubsidiary burial rooms are cut with loculi for the dispo-sition of the greater number of the dead In fact unpre-tentious chamber tombs in early Alexandrian cemeteriesalso admit loculi cut into the walls Though a pragmaticnecessity for the disposition of multiple dead loculi markthe earliest intrusion of an Egyptian element into theotherwise Classically based Alexandrian tomb Of muchgreater relevance however to the thesis of the bilingualnature of Alexandrian tombs are the tombs that followfrom Hypogeum A

The Tombs at Moustapha Pasha

Also to the east of Alexandria but more distant from thecity than Hypogeum A the tombs at Moustapha Pasha (inthe quarter now renamed Moustapha Kamel345) provide a

more complicated visual bilingualism than that encoun-tered in the former tomb Moustapha Pasha 1 betterpreserved upon its excavation than Hypogeum A wasearly reconstructed Though other tombs in Alexandriawere certainly as opulent346 Moustapha Pasha 1rsquos wealthof original detail and careful restoration ensure that itserves as the poster-child for early Ptolemaic Alexandriantombs347 It is most likely that the tomb dates somewhatbefore the middle of the third century bce348 and itexemplifies the maturation of the original model charac-terized by Hypogeum A

Like Hypogeum A Moustapha Pasha 1 is a multi-room construction built around an open court (Fig 23)A rock-cut stairway enters the court at the north end ofthe west wall and rooms open from the courtrsquos southand north walls Centering the court is an altar that stillpreserved the ashes of the last sacrifice when it was exca-vated349 The burial room is to the south of the courtwith its kline niche preceded by an anteroom acces-sible through any of the three doorways cut into thecourtrsquos south wall Although no remains of a kline areevident the kline roomrsquos architecturally articulated door-way finds a parallel in the kline chamber in MoustaphaPasha Tomb 2 and its richly painted interior and the lowplatform set at its entrance as a base for the trapeza (asmall table) that stood before the kline ndash which can bereconstructed by the trapeza extant in front of the klinein Moustapha Pasha 2350 ndash solidify the chamberrsquos func-tion351 To further emphasize the metaphorical purposeof the rock-cut banquette klinai in Moustapha Pasha 2

53



23 Alexandria Moustapha Pasha 1 Plan (after Adriani 1966 pl 48 fig 181)

and Moustapha Pasha 3 add footstools carved in highrelief352 These domestic appointments remove the kline(and the kline-sarcophagus) from a primary function asa bier They further confirm the evidence yielded bythe arrangement of the kline-sarcophagi in HypogeumA that situate the couches in the realm of the banquet of(or with) the dead

As in all Alexandrian tombs the architectural detailsof Moustapha Pasha 1 are Greek (Fig 24 and Fig25) The doors in the court are each formed of twouprights crowned by a projecting short cornice decoratedwith superimposed bands of plastically rendered Lesbian-leaf Ionic egg-and-dart and Doric-tongue ornamentThough unusual in Alexandrian tombs ndash and possibly anartifact of the tombrsquos early date ndash as in Hypogeum Athe walls of the court are conceived in Greek masonry-style as also in Hypogeum A they are further punctuatedby engaged horizontally divided partially fluted Doriccolumns At each corner of the court these columns

become heart- or ivy-leaf-shaped in section assuminga form probably of East Greek origin353 to bridge theangle

Above the Doric columns is a Doric frieze with threemetopes within each intercolumniation on the northand south sides of the court and two on the east andwest The three-metope wide intercolumniation on thewalls of the court that open onto rooms conforms to theestablished practice in Greek stoas and theater buildingsThis configuration is used to retain reasonable propor-tions for both the metopes and the architrave in a situa-tion in which on the one hand the column diameter isrelatively small because the columns are relatively shortand on the other the intercolumniation has to be rel-atively wide to accommodate pedestrian traffic354 Yetwithin this fully understood Greek architectural frame-work Moustapha Pasha 1 incorporates the earliest exam-ple of figurative Egyptian content in an Alexandriantomb

54


EGYPT AS METAPHOR

24 Alexandria Moustapha Pasha 1 the South Wall and the Altar (Author Photo)

This nascent bilingualism is telling both in its sophis-tication and in its form In front of the south facade ofthe court of Moustapha 1 sphinxes crouch on pedestalsguarding the entrances to the burial chamber (see Fig25) Yet though the sphinx is a very old Greek guardian ofthe tomb355 the Moustapha Pasha sphinxes are not Greeksphinxes which are normally winged and female and sitback on their haunches with their forelegs firmly plantedas does for example the sphinx that queries Oedipusin Chapter Three Egyptian sphinxes are notably differ-ent they perform a different function assume a differentgender and strike a different pose They are not tombguardians but instead are connected with royal power andthey are normally male unwinged and crouch like lionsYet though the sphinxes in the Moustapha Pasha tombfunction as Greek sphinxes in form pose and attributethey replicate those of Egypt Crouched like Egyptiansphinxes and wingless like Egyptian sphinxes their gen-der indeterminate they wear the royal nemes headclothof Egyptian pharaohs Similar sphinxes once guarded theHellenically styled doorway to the first suite of burial

rooms of the Alexandrian tomb Anfushy II on PharosIsland and they were also set in front of the egyptianizeddoorway between its anteroom and burial room (Rooms1 and 2)356 With sophisticated efficiency these sphinxesincorporate the efficacy of Egyptian antiquity into theirGreek visual synonym and by means of this Egyptianreference they create a new more greatly nuanced anddoubly efficacious image of supernatural protection forthis monumental tomb Concurrently with their nemesheaddresses and their reference to Egyptian royalty thesesphinxes add a regal note to tombs in which no royaltywere interred

The Tombs of Pharos Island

The sphinxes that inhabit Anfushy Tomb II mark onlyone contribution to the bilingualism that informs theAlexandrian tombs of Pharos Island Once connected tothe mainland by the manmade Heptastadion and now apeninsula north of the mainland Pharos Island is namedafter the lighthouse one of the seven wonders of the

55



25 Alexandria Moustapha Pasha 1 the South Wall Detail ofthe Sphinxes (Author Photo)

ancient world that stood at its eastern tip357 The mon-umental tombs of Pharos Island those at Anfushy andthose on the grounds of the former palace at Ras el Tinoccupy the western part of the peninsula with Anfushyas the farther west of the two complexes First cut in thesecond century bce these tombs actively demonstrateAlexandrian bilingualism and the conceptual and visualrichness that results though ndash aside from the sphinxes inAnfushy II ndash their strategies differ from those devised forMoustapha Pasha 1

Accessed by a covered stair and built around an opencourt like Hypogeum A and the Moustapha Pasha tombsthe tombs at Anfushy and Ras el Tin follow similarthough reduced plans to those encountered in earlierAlexandrian tombs Extending from the open court areone or two suites of rooms in each of which a longanteroom precedes a smaller burial chamber Rock-cutklinai are rare in Pharos Island tombs358 and it is probablethat in most tombs wooden klinai served in their place

Obviating any possibility of these tombs being thoseof Egyptians native to Pharos Island as argued by AchilleAdriani359 Anfushy tombs retain their Graeco-Romanunderpinning well into the first century ce Room 3 ofAnfushy Tomb I360 for example the only tomb that issignificantly reconfigured architecturally is refashionedwith three brick-built sarcophagi forming the metaphor-ical triclinium that Roman-period Alexandrian tombsadopt for their burial room as they architecturally trans-form the earlier Greek banqueting metaphor of the klineto a form paradigmatic of the Roman period Anfushy I3preserves this change from the Greek to the Roman din-ing format in material form This architectural changeas well as showing a continuity in classicizing style alsounderscores the importance of the banqueting metaphorin the conception of the Alexandrian tomb a theme thatis further explored later

In addition to the architectural transformation inAnfushy Tomb I the original decoration of the othertombs at Anfushy also demonstrates their Classical her-itage Their walls are decorated in Greek zone-style asseen earlier in Hypogeum A with a socle a course oforthostats treated ndash as is normal in Alexandria ndash as if madeof alabaster a string course and a main frieze painted tosimulate isodomic blocks Ceilings of the rooms are mostoften painted to simulate coffered blocks also a Classicalreference Yet despite their Hellenic heritage Egyptiandecorative elements are incorporated into the tombs atAnfushy either applied later or integrated into the orig-inal Hellenic decorative scheme

One of the anterooms (Room 1) of Anfushy TombII361 for example preserves this change in the renovationof the main frieze region of its zone-style wall (Pl IV) Inits original state the main frieze had been painted to sim-ulate ashlar masonry as in other Alexandrian tombs ina second phase however the main frieze was repaintedwith a checker pattern in black and white with Egyp-tian crowns painted on white lsquoplaquesrsquo set within thecheckerboard of the wall The string course and upperfrieze of the original Greek zone-style wall were alsorefashioned with the checker pattern but the orthostatswere repainted to appear as the original alabaster and thecoffered ceiling remained unchanged The same check-ered pattern is also applied to the tombrsquos burial room(Room 2) which was previously undecorated and inwhich the checker-pattern covers the entire wall362 Asin the antechamber the checkers are interrupted byplaques painted with Egyptian crowns in addition onthe entrance wall a plaque to either side of the doorway

56


EGYPT AS METAPHOR

26 Alexandria Ras el Tin 8 Kline Niche (after Venit 2002 72 fig 55)

bears a painted jackal which faces the entrance and guardsthe burial room as jackals do on the seals of the necropo-lis in pharaonic Egypt363 though the Anfushy jackals sitalertly upright like Greek sphinxes364 The same checkerdecoration is found in the kline room of Ras el Tin 8(Fig 26) which also has two large plaques incorporatedin the design and in Anfushy V365 (Pl V) though in bothtombs the checkered pattern coexists with contempora-neously painted Greek-style elements

The checker motif as first noted by Rudolf Pagen-stecher366 was intended to simulate faience tiles a dec-orative wall treatment historically tied to Egypt

Faience tiles appear in Egypt as early as Dynasty I367

but they are most frequently attested in the New King-dom where they are found in palace context368 In thesepalaces faience tiles can bear figurative subjects rangingfrom delicately rendered vegetative and faunal elementsto descriptively faithful portrayals of foreign peoples

therefore though so far as I know the specific subjectsof the mimetic faience plaques on the walls of AnfushyTomb II are unattested in extant New Kingdom materialin their ideation the figured faience plaques also find apharaonic model and that model is a royal one

Actual glazed faience tiles are also found in Ptole-maic Alexandria Sixty faience squares were excavatedin Alexandriarsquos Royal Quarter and although their spe-cific architectural context is unclear their findspot arguesfor their having embellished some part of the palacecomplex at about the same time that Anfushy Tomb IIwas redecorated369 Their findspot consequently arguesthat the faience tile retained the Egyptian palatial con-notation that it carried in the pharaonic period andit constitutes the strongest argument against identifyingthis culturally Egyptian material in the Ptolemaic periodsolely with peoples that are ethnically Egyptian In a tombcomplex such as the one at Anfushy that normally shuns

57



27 Alexandria Anfushy II1 Egyptianizing Doorway (Author Photo)

figurative content and relies on illusionistic architectureto make its statement the faience tiles must stand (as theyundoubtedly do in the Ptolemaic palace) as a referent forEgypt Like the crouched royal sphinxes that guard thedoorways to the burial rooms at Moustapha Pasha Tomb1 and Anfushy II the faience tiles in the tombs on PharosIsland articulate the intention to entomb the dead withina complex with regal implications

At the same time as the refurbishing of the walls ofAnfushy II the doorway between the anteroom and theburial room was reconfigured from a Greek doorwayto an egyptianizing one (Fig 27) The redesigned doorenclosure boasts Egyptian varicolored columns crownedwith papyriform capitals supporting an Egyptian segmen-tal pediment with a central disc and a broken lintelwhich is applied to the door frame about halfway upIn contrast Anfushy V which also presents two types ofsimultaneously constructed ethnically specific doorwaysadmits this bilingual decoration contemporaneously Theentrance to one of the anterooms of Anfushy V (Room4) for example is effected through an architecturally

egyptianizing doorway whereas the embrasure betweenthe anteroom and its burial chamber (Room 5) is hel-lenizing with white uprights crowned by a molding ofbrightly painted Lesbian leaf (see Pl V)

Probably at the same time in the first century bce thatAnfushy II was redecorated three egyptianizing paintingswere added to the otherwise Greek-style walls of thestaircase Two are extant one is set into the main friezeon the first landing at the bottom of the first flight ofstairs and the second is placed in the semicircular spacecreated by the vaulted ceiling at the end of the secondflight of stairs immediately before the doglegged entranceto the court

Because the tombs on Pharos Island generally rejectfigurative imagery in favor of architectural iconographythe paintings of Anfushy Tomb II are notable The paint-ing at the bottom of the second stairway is the less wellpreserved of the two At the right of the panel a figureof Osiris is seated to the left on a throne with a jackalseated upright on a stand behind him Any figures fac-ing Osiris are no longer visible but Adriani identified

58


EGYPT AS METAPHOR

28 Alexandria Anfushy II the Painting on the Upper Landing of the Staircase (Author Photo)

the figure immediately in front of Osiris as the deadman370 and he saw another figure which he identifiedas Horus371 If Adrianirsquos identifications of the missing fig-ures are correct this painting is an exceptional examplein recorded Alexandrian tombs since it would have pre-sented an actual Egyptian eschatological narrative beyondthat of the singularly frequently depicted lustration of themummy

The image on the first landing is better preservedand less exceptional within the Alexandrian corpus (Fig28) It shows the dead person welcomed by Egyptiandeities The figures are presented in a reasonably accu-rate although generalized Egyptian form and stand inthe composite Egyptian pose Their skin is painted thegold color reserved for the gods but aside from Horusat the left whose falcon-headed form is immediatelyreadable they lack identifying attributes Horus standswith his right hand upraised and his left poised on theback of the deceased The deceased faces away fromHorus toward the two figures at the left He is garbed inan ankle-length garment intricately arranged across historso and he wears an elaborate pectoral his hair is styledin a conventional Egyptian manner372 This mode of

representation in which deities lack attributes or inwhich attributes are awarded cavalierly without respect totradition is an aspect that more greatly invades Alexan-drian mortuary representation during the period ofRoman rule In both the Ptolemaic and the Romanperiod however this pervasiveness of a generalizediconographic treatment indicates at once the efficacy ofthe egyptianized image itself independent of the verac-ity of its precise form or the specificity of its narrativeand the disinclination of Alexandrian Greeks to depicttraditional Egyptian narrative As shall become clear thelustration of the dead is the only certain exception to thisgeneralization with the image at the bottom of the stair-case of Anfushy Tomb II providing a possible anomaly

The tombs on Pharos Island which may begin as tombsbased fully on Hellenic components evolve into ones thatare architecturally (and in the case of Anfushy II picto-rially) bilingual The elements that are chosen from theEgyptian architectural vocabulary to construct this bilin-gualism indicate that this linguistic choice is employedto speak to the fabricated regal status of the deceasedentombed within the monuments as well as to the effi-cacy of Egyptian mortuary religion

59



29 Alexandria the Saqiya Tomb the Herm in the Court(Author Photo)

The Saqiya Tomb

Even the most classicizing of the later Ptolemaic-periodtombs the Saqiya Tomb373 from the modern quarter ofWardian ndash part of ancient Alexandriarsquos western necrop-olis ndash also admits Egyptian elements When discoveredonly the court a kline room and the remains of anotherroom that abutted the court were at all preserved374 Thesurviving painted slabs which form a unique ensemblewere subsequently hewn from the bedrock and installedin the Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria

The tomb takes its name from the water-lifting devicein the largest remaining painting in the court that showsa piping boy walking around a saqiya accompanying theoxen that turn the wheel (Pl VI) Painted on the shortwall perpendicular to the saqiya scene is a bearded herm

of Pan set in a woodland enclosure (Fig 29) On thewall perpendicular to that one and on what must havebeen the jamb leading into a second room a shepherdoverlooks his flock (Fig 210) painted below and pro-tects it from the lurking jackal at the bottom of the pic-ture He holds an animal across his shoulders and standsin an easy chiastic pose The scene finds a close visualparallel in an image of Herakles from Tomb 3 at Rasel Tin (Fig 211) which also decorated a door jamband which also is divided horizontally into two halvesBelow the Ras el Tin Herakles (though not extant on theslab transported to the museum) a hoopoe perches on aplant375 while above the hero dominates the jamb ndash asdoes the shepherd ndash although Herakles stands in a muchless convincing pose The images in the Saqiya Tomb areconstructed using varying thicknesses of wash and thedetails are quickly sketched with pen-like calligraphiclines Their disposition follows that of contemporane-ous (and earlier) Greek works the oxen in the saqiyascene are rendered in three-quarter view and the shep-herd stands in an easy weight-leg free-leg stance Thestyle of all the scenes in the Saqiya Tomb is undeniablyGreek and its content ndash with the exception of the water-wheel itself which is a Hellenistic invention ndash is foundin the Greek visual repertoire as early as the sixth centurybce

In concert with the Classical style of the figures onthe walls of the court the burial chamber incorporatesfacing klinai each set into an arcosolium376 Arcosolia(arcuated niches) characterize Roman-period and laterChristian tombs throughout the Mediterranean worldand the Saqiya Tombrsquos arcosolia are among the earliestPainted on the back wall of the niche formed by theklinai are birds (reminiscent of the avian treatment inthe court of Hypogeum A) and fictive columns createthe impression of a third dimension as in Ras el Tin 8(see Fig 26) On the back wall of the kline chamberitself a male reclines under a fruited arbor (Fig 212)

Nevertheless within this exceptionally Classical tombtwo elements conjoin to add the Saqiya Tomb to theinventory of Alexandrian bilingual monuments First isthe painting on the facade of a kline-sarcophagus cutinto the court directly across from the saqiya scene (PlVII) Conceptually similar to the cross-bred sphinxes inMoustapha Pasha 1 it presents another ancient creatureat once recognizable as an Egyptian ba-bird by the papyruson which it perches and the nemes headcloth and theuraeus that it wears (neither of which however trulyfollows an Egyptian model) and as a Greek siren which

60


EGYPT AS METAPHOR

210 Alexandria the Saqiya Tomb the Shepherd on the Jambfrom the Court into an Adjoining Room (Author Photo)

since at least the early fifth century bce has also hadfunerary connotations377

The Egyptian ba and the Greek siren are visually sim-ilar but eschatologically distant The siren figured onvases ndash where it stands on the grave mound ndash and ongrave stelai378 is a protector of the tomb The ba-bird isnot One of the constituent parts of a human being theba is an active element and therefore articulated in hiero-glyphs as a heron and figured in imagery as a human-headed bird379 The ba usually translated as the soulbecomes especially important upon the death of the bodyIt is similar to the Greek lsquofree soulrsquo (psyche) that leaves thebody at death380 but the ba which also leaves the body ofthe deceased to roam about the celestial and underworldregions must ndash unlike the Greek psyche ndash nightly reunite

211 Alexandria Ras el Tin 3 Herakles Soter (Author Photo)

with the body to preserve the unity of the deceased Theba is not a guardian of the deceased body as the sirenis but provides the body with ldquolife-giving connectiv-ityrdquo381 The form and the funerary connotations of theGreek siren may well originally have been imported fromEgypt382 but the Saqiya Tombrsquos soul-bird has acquiredan occupational aspect from its Greek residence sinceon the sarcophagus ndash where another ba-bird must havedecorated the lost right side383 ndash it serves as a guardianfor the deceased interred within The oversized ba-birdwith its fierce frown on the facade of Saqiya Tomb sar-cophagus assumes the form of an Egyptian soul-bird butit functions protectively as a Greek siren

61



212 Alexandria the Saqiya Tomb Reclining Male on the Back Wall of the Kline Room (AuthorDrawing)

Despite the Egyptian form and the egyptianized stylethe image adopts however details such as the thin washesof color and the fine black pen-like calligraphic lines thatcharacterize the other paintings from the court reveal thatthe ba-bird (or siren) is by the same hand that paintedthe other images in the tomb and thus coeval with theremainder of the painted program The integration ofthe Greek siren with the Egyptian soul-bird in the SaqiyaTomb accords with the treatment of the sphinxes inMoustapha Pasha Tomb 1 and Anfushy II and arguesfor a dual reference inhabiting the heretofore culturallyspecific eschatological signs In addition the presence ofthis creature in this otherwise overwhelmingly classiciz-ing tomb underscores the importance of the inclusionof the egyptianizing content throughout the tombs ofAlexandria

The second egyptianizing element in the Saqiya Tombis found in the remains of a room adjacent to the court384its wall is designed in Greek zone-style with a plinthorthostat blocks painted to appear as alabaster and a mainfrieze but the latter is decorated with a black-and-whitechecker pattern similar to that of the repainted walls inAnfushy Tomb II and the original walls in Anfushy V and

Ras el Tin 8 This simulation of faience tiles associatesthe Saqiya Tomb from Wardian in Alexandriarsquos westerncemetery with tombs on Pharos Island385 reemphasizingthe Greek patronage of the former tombs More impor-tant for the theme of this chapter however the checkerdecoration of the zone-style wall as in the tombs onPharos Island incorporates Egypt indicating an inten-tional bilingualism in a tomb in which the great major-ity of the imagery is in a style that evokes the Hellenicworld

The Saqiya Tomb is bilingual in yet another way sincethe landscapes also can be read to embrace both Greekand Egyptian eschatological viewpoints They act as dothe poems in the tomb of Isidora (discussed in ChapterThree) to embrace both cultures by employing referencesculturally specific to each I have previously argued386

that the Saqiya Tombrsquos landscapes perfectly parallel thoseevoked in the shepherdrsquos song in the First Idyll ofTheocritus ndash the poet-in-residence in the Ptolemaiccourt in the 270s ndash as articulated by Charles Segal387

and I have also argued that these landscapes in the SaqiyaTomb (as those in Theocritusrsquo poem) can be interpretedmetaphorically to address the range of human experience

62


EGYPT AS METAPHOR

The first two landscapes ndash those of the saqiya and theherm ndash express the polarities of the human psyche Civi-lization and the triumph of culture is epitomized in theland that is brought under human control by the inven-tion of the saqiya while the untamed aspect of the humancondition is delineated in the woodland sanctuary of therustic semi-goatlike Pan Between these two extremesstands the third image the shepherd guarding his flockThe pastoral land he exemplifies mediates between thecultivated and the undomesticated for it is at once ben-eficial to humankind since it supports his flocks andyet it lies unaltered by human intervention Thus thethree paintings of the court embrace the complexity ofnature in its relationship to humankind And in doingso they also speak to Egypt S C Humphreys388 has pro-posed that the thrice-yearly harvest in the Egyptian Islesof the Blest indicates not only perpetual abundance butalso an unchanging state that echoes the timelessness ofthe existence of the dead The paintings in the SaqiyaTomb may be intended to evoke a similar metaphor asthey too denote a fully rounded vision of the complete-ness and the permanence of nature and by extensionthe immutable eternal life of the deceased buried withinthe monument Thus though in ways distinct from oneanother the Saqiya Tomb and the tombs from PharosIsland continue amplify and further nuance the bilin-gual quality of Ptolemaic-period Alexandrian tombs

ROMAN-PERIOD TOMBS

Whereas rumblings of bilingualism can be heard as earlyas the first extant monumental Alexandrian tombs thepractice fully erupts during the period of Roman ruleIn the first two centuries of the Common Era almostall Alexandrian tombs that are architecturally particu-larized or figurally enhanced show an intersection ofcarefully chosen Greek and Egyptian elements I havedevoted a chapter to this phenomenon in MonumentalTombs of Ancient Alexandria389 as well as an article390 butI should like to revisit this curiosity to summarize previ-ous thoughts and to offer new ideas on a subject that actsas a foundation for the appreciation of Roman-periodAlexandrian tombs

The Bilingual Tombs in the lsquoNebengrabrsquo

The hill called Kom el-Shoqafa (the lsquoHill of Sherdsrsquo) shel-ters both Christian and Roman-period tombs beneath itscurrent domestic and commercial crust and it is two of

the latter that are of immediate interest here ndash the so-called Nebengrab and the Great Catacomb

The lsquoNebengrabrsquo (so-called for its proximity to thebetter known lsquoGreat Catacombrsquo at Kom el-Shoqafa) oralternatively the lsquoHall of Caracallarsquo (called so based ondubious historical interpretation)391 is now accessiblefrom the Great Catacomb through a tomb-robbersrsquo holein the bedrock Originally a small independent cata-comb accessible by a staircase it consists of a corridorwith a large room of neatly cut loculi at its end andtwo short corridors parallel to one another containingrock-cut sarcophagi that create niches ndash an early form ofarcosolia but with flat ceilings ndash that extend the conceitof the kline niche into the Roman period The nicheswith their triangularly shaped pediments supported byengaged piers are conceived in Graeco-Roman architec-tural style The paintings that once decorated the nichespediments and piers of the tombs are scarcely visible (orentirely lost) today but upon the catacombrsquos discovery in1901 Giuseppe Botti was able to identify the faint imageof the lustration of the mummy on Tomb lsquoirsquo392 anda watercolor in Theodor Schreiberrsquos monumental workpreserves the decoration of Tomb lsquohrsquo which shows con-fronted Graeco-Roman Nemesis sphinxes overseeing thetomb from their perch in the pediment and iconic Egyp-tian figures (including a ba-bird) on the piers and wallsof the niche393 Almost 100 years later ultraviolet photo-graphs taken under the auspices of the Centre drsquoEtudesAlexandrines clarified paintings on two other tombs inthe adjacent corridor that humidity had dimly raised sincethe middle of the last century394 which were published byAnne-Marie Guimer-Sorbets and Mervat Seif el-Din395

The walls of the niches of these two tombs are eachdivided into two registers the upper register is devoted tothe myth of Osiris the lower to that of Persephone (Fig213)396 The upper frieze of the tombsrsquo back walls showsthe lustration of the mummy (read by the authors as thedeath of Osiris though it may as likely refer to the deathof the inhabitant of the sarcophagus assimilated to thedeity) Below is a scene of the abduction of Persephonea scene frequent in Roman-period tombs throughout theEmpire regardless of the gender of the deceased397 Theleft wall of Tomb 2 and almost certainly the right wallof Tomb 1 (the lower part is destroyed by the robbersrsquocut) present two more scenes ndash the upper interpreted bythe authors as the resurrection of Osiris and below theanodos of Persephone partly risen from the earth havingfinally been discharged from Hades for six months of theyear The latter is a scene rarely visualized in Greek or

63



213 Alexandria Kom el-Shoqafa lsquoNebengrabrsquo Persephone Tomb 2 the Back Wall of the Niche(Centre drsquoEtudes Alexandrines [watercolor by Mary-Jane Schumacher Photo by Andre PelleCNRS])

Roman art and almost unknown in sepulchral contextelsewhere398

The authors of the publications of the two Neben-grab tombs coined the term lsquobilingualismrsquo to describethe visual polarity of the tombsrsquo imagery concomitantwith the inherent code-switching of the ensemble399

the death and resurrection of Osiris coupled with theabduction to the Underworld and subsequent return ofPersephone present congruent narratives Neither is a lit-eral translation of the other each makes its point withinits native visual language and its native mortuary idealBut the inherent meaning of each ndash so far as the deceasedis concerned ndash is the essentially same each denotes thecontinuation of life after death

Aside from the sophistication of the interlingual visualtext that inhabits each of the two tombs and even asidefrom the rarity of the anodos image of the lsquoresurrectedrsquoPersephone in mortuary context (occasioned here doubt-less by the lsquoresurrectionrsquo image of Osiris and the necessityof parallelism) the scene of the abduction of Persephonecarries another indication of the sophistication as well as

the iconoclasm of these Alexandrian monuments Andthis is an aspect that the authors do not address Thisfacet is of major consequence however since it demon-strates the erudition originality and resourcefulness ofthe Alexandrian constituency in their approach to visualimagery and it thus provides a firm basis from which toargue the intentionality of the examples of interactionproposed throughout this chapter

In both Nebengrab tombs five characters populate thescene of the abduction of Persephone Artemis (Diana)Athena (Minerva) Aphrodite (Venus) Hades (Pluto) andPersephone (Proserpina) herself

The iconographic trope of Hades seizing an unwill-ing Persephone and carrying her off in his chariot herarms flailing is a late addition to the visual descriptionof the scene400 Early fifth-century Attic vases normallyshow a pursuit on foot in the gods-pursuing-womenmotif and later fourth-century Italic vases most oftenshow Persephone as a compliant accessory to her abduc-tion401 The work closest to the model that is seen hereand throughout the Roman period is embodied in the

64


EGYPT AS METAPHOR

painting in the Persephone tomb at Vergina that Mano-lis Andronikos argues was painted by Nikomachos pre-ceding his portable painting of the same subject402 Thecentral image preserved in the Vergina tomb is dupli-cated on funerary monuments throughout the Romanworld and also appears on Alexandrian coins of TrajanHadrian and Antoninus Pius403 Well before the 1977discovery of the Vergina tomb scholars had long consid-ered that a painting by Nikomachos known from Pliny(NH 3536108) was the source for Roman representa-tions of the subject Carried off to Rome where it wasdisplayed in the Temple of Minerva on the Capitoline thepainting probably perished in the fire of 64 ce during thereign of Nero404 Since representations in Rome ndash espe-cially a polychrome mosaic from a columbarium on theVia Portuensis405 which preserves the nymph Kyane andher basket of flowers ndash so closely adhere to the Verginapainting406 it is likely that the painting in Rome wasa reliable analogue of the extant painting from Verginawhose discovery in turn now provides concrete evi-dence for the model Though the extant replicas of thepainting seen by Pliny excavated in Rome usually read ndashas does the Vergina painting ndash from right to left407 thosefrom the eastern Roman Empire tend even more oftento read ndash as do the two in Alexandria ndash from left toright The change in direction may not be noteworthysince ndash boustrophedon aside ndash writing was directed left toright and this orientation may have seemed much morenatural408 Nevertheless the directional change encoun-tered outside Rome may hint at the motifrsquos means oftransmission ndash that is transference through the dissemi-nation of cast objects If the mold-maker failed to reversethe image the ensuing object would carry the scene inreverse as do the Alexandrian coins the roughness of theAlexandrian paintings (and others in the Roman East seeChapter Three) may in part stem from their reliance ona small-sized model Nevertheless the change in direc-tion of the scene aside the Alexandrian paintings do notfaithfully follow the more usual model in another moretelling detail

The image in the Vergina tomb incorporates Hermesleading the chariot and one of Persephonersquos playmatesKyane still crouching near the flowers she had beenpicking Other images of the story substitute Athenaor Athena and Artemis for Persephonersquos mortal com-panion or companions based on the ldquoHomeric Hymnto Demeterrdquo (line 424) probably composed in the earlysixth century bce that numbers the two virgin deitiesamong the maidens playing and gathering flowers in the

meadow The two deities are specifically picked out byEuripides (Helen 1314ndash1318) and later Diodorus Sicu-lus (V4) which undoubtedly augments their visual fre-quency thereafter409 The images in the two Alexandriantombs however add the libertine Aphrodite to the twovirgin deities elsewhere depicted In this way these tombsare almost unique in seemingly deriving their visual andtextual source from one untapped by the other depictionsof the subject

This combination of the three deities appears in onlyone other object known to me a stone relief on Corfuthat Ruth Lindner thinks may have once formed part of astatue base and that she is comfortable dating only to theldquoImperial periodrdquo followed by a question mark410 Thedifference in the group is slight the figure of Aphroditeis reversed but it achieves the same pose as the one inthe Nebengrab with the goddess lifting her veil signifyingthe impending union

It is Aphrodite Ovid (Met 5362ndash384) relates who ndashgalled by the virginity of Artemis and Athena and thatof the virgin Kore too ndash spurs on Eros to enraptureHades Aphrodite is occasionally pictured among thedeities that witness the abduction of Persephone butLindner who could not have known the Alexandriaimages correctly notes in regard to the Corfu base thatldquothe three-figure group of the playmates of Persephonein this form is uniquerdquo411 She also observes that ldquothefigure of Aphrodite who steps majestically between theabduction and the pursuing sisters is especially empha-sizedrdquo412 as she is in the Nebengrabrsquos Persephone tombswhere she is set slightly apart from Artemis and Athenaand centered in the frieze The image on the Corfu stonealso differs from the Alexandrian paintings in adding thefigure of Hermes leading Hadesrsquo chariot as in the Verginatomb painting and others and it also includes a styl-ized image of an oversized lotus below the chariot Theflower ndash which is alien to the physical setting of the nar-rative ndash and its formal treatment ndash which is incompatiblewith the naturalistic treatment of the scene ndash might sug-gest Alexandria as the source for the iconoclastic three-some Nevertheless despite these slight differences theCorfu relief seemingly employs the same visual sourceas the two Alexandrian images that though painted bydifferent hands stem from a single model as Guimier-Sorbets has seen413

Despite the incongruous lotus blossom the originalvisual source for the image cannot be definitively tracedThe literary source seems clearer though its author-ship and date are complicated ldquoWhile Proserpina was

65



214 Alexandria Kom el-Shoqafa Main Tomb Plan (after Adriani 1966 pl 98 fig 330)

picking flowers [on Mount Aetna] with Venus Dianaand Minervardquo Hyginus records (Fabulae 1462) ldquoPlutocame on a chariot and abducted herrdquo414 The Hyginusoften attributed as the author (or compiler) of the Fables isGaius Julius Hyginus a freedman of Augustus ndash accord-ing to Suetonius (On Grammarians 20) ndash who was either aSpaniard or an Alexandrian and who became the librarianat the Palatine Library But as noted by Jean-Yves Bori-aud415 ldquothe problems of authorship had already beenraised in the first modern edition of the text by JacobusMycillus in 1535 where he set them forth in terms thathave scarcely been outdatedrdquo Boriaud who recentlyedited and translated the Latin text416 opts for Sueto-niusrsquo Hyginus as the Fablesrsquo author or more correctly itscompiler417 though others have argued on etymologicaland stylistic grounds for an early-third-century ce datefor the work418 Since the Fabulae appear to be a com-pilation of earlier sources however the specific time ofits compilation is incidental to any argument about theprimacy of any specific myth

The two Persephone tombs from Alexandria areloosely dated by the authors of their publication to theend-of-the-first through the middle-of-the-second cen-tury ce419 They and the undated relief from Corfu theybring with them indicate that the myth that includedAphrodite among Persephonersquos immortal playmates was

probably known in some form before the mid-secondcentury (obviating the early-third-century date somepropose for the origin of the variation of the myth)and it would not be entirely irresponsible to speculatethat the author of the Fables was an Alexandrian whocompiled his work under Augustus The central positionthat Aphrodite assumes in the images ndash despite Ovidrsquosversion in which she embodies the fulcrum on whichthe narrative turns ndash may be tied to the originality ofher role in the Fables as understood and exploited bythe creator of the model of the extant images The useof this arcane version of the myth accords well with therarified intellectual air that Alexandrians breathed dailyand encapsulates the acuity that transfuses tomb programsin the Graeco-Roman capital of Egypt

The Main Tomb in the Great Catacombat Kom el-Shoqafa

Abutting the Nebengrab the Great Catacomb at Komel-Shoqafa420 is by far the best known tomb complex inAlexandria it is visited almost daily by groups of Alexan-drian school children and it is most often the only tombencountered by casual visitors and tourists to the city It isa vast multiroom complex comprising at least three lev-els the lowest of which has been underwater ndash with few

66


EGYPT AS METAPHOR

215 Alexandria Kom el-Shoqafa Main Tomb the Facade of the Pronaos and the Burial Chamber(Author Photo)

fleeting exceptions ndash since the tombrsquos discovery421 Likethe Nebengrab it adheres to a Graeco-Roman architec-tural model (Fig 214) drawn from Graeco-Roman ele-ments It is accessed by a deep staircase in its case circularand centers on a lsquorotundarsquo which serves the physical andvisual function of the central court of Ptolemaic-periodtombs It incorporates two exedrae each covered bya Tridacna-shell-shaped half-dome ndash a Graeco-Romanmotif unknown in pharaonic Egypt422 ndash and a banquetingroom in the form of a triclinium for the funeral feast thesilicernium423 and memorial repasts424 The Main Tombthe focus of the complex remaining above the waterlineis also in triclinium form (as are a wealth of the sub-sidiary tombs) and its niches shelter rock-cut Roman-style sarcophagi serving as the metaphorical banquetingcouches Yet despite the generally Classical and specifi-cally Alexandrian aspects of the tomb the ensemble pro-vides an impression of Egyptian opulence that verges on

nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century EgyptomaniaIn its case however the applications of Egyptian formsand the inclusion of Egyptian deities figured in Egyp-tian narratives are not decorative elements but are insteadcomponents essential to the meaning of the tombrsquos visualprogram

Concordant with the Classical architectural dispositionof the Great Catacomb the Main Tomb assumes the planof a Greek temple (or temple-tomb) with a naos (theburial chamber) preceded by a pronaos (the anteroom)Yet despite its underlying Classical plan the architecturalunits that raise the plan assume their inspiration fromEgypt

The Pronaos of the Main TombThe pronaos is introduced by two columns set betweenantae but these antae are egyptianized (Fig 215) Theytake the form of engaged pilasters carved with papyrus at

67



216 Alexandria Kom el-Shoqafa Main Tomb the FemaleStatue (Author Photo)

their foot and crowned with anta capitals in Egyptiancomposite form Similarly egyptianizing the columnsrise from disc bases and following the scheme of theantae terminate in Egyptian composite capitals whichcarry the heavy impost blocks that characterize Egyp-tian architecture The reliefs carved on the architrave areegyptianizing too showing a central winged sun-discflanked by a Horus falcon to either side And thoughdiscordantly the architrave is capped by a row of Greekdentils the facade is finished off with an Egyptian seg-mental pediment with a disc centered in its tympanumIn addition to the dissonant dentils above the architraveanother Graeco-Roman architectural element precedesthe pronaos It is a large plastic semicircular Tridacna-shell-shaped conch carved in the stone above the shortstaircases leading to that level425 echoing the half-domesof the exedrae and visually tying the facade of the MainTomb to the catacombrsquos entrance

217 Alexandria Kom el-Shoqafa Main Tomb the MaleStatue (Author Photo)

Set in niches capped with plain cavetto moldings andfacing one another across the pronaos of the Main Tombtwo almost life-sized statues ndash one of a female the otherof a male ndash must be images of the tombrsquos patrons (Fig216 and Fig 217)426 These statues are in the traditionof Roman tomb-statues and their heads are carved inRoman style The male has snail-like curly hair arrangedabove a countenance that shows a plastic treatment ofhis furrowed brow the hollows under his eyes his bonycheeks and the deep groove and ridges that form thenasolabial fold427 The pupil of his eye is drilled outaffording him a piercing gaze The femalersquos head alsoassumes a Roman-portrait form and her hairstyle ndashthe locks pulled to either side forming neat waves ndash isfound in many classicizing works from the Greek Classi-cal period to the Late Antique The two portrait headsnevertheless suggest a date in the latter part of the firstcentury ce for the tomb428

68


EGYPT AS METAPHOR

Yet though the male and femalersquos portrait heads con-form with those in Rome their stance and garmentsimmediately distinguish these statues from tomb portraitsfrom the capital Both figures stand with their weightevenly divided between both legs in stiff poses that havetheir genesis millennia past in Egypt and instead of theexpected Greek (or Roman) attire they wear garmentsthat also speak to Egyptrsquos antiquity The man wears onlya shendyt-kilt429 belted about the waist known from OldKingdom royal portraits430 and a type that is characteristicof the archaizing sculptures of Dynasty Twenty-six andTwenty-seven for nonroyal persons431 It is one employedvariously in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods and cor-responds too to the type of kilt awarded the EmperorHadrianrsquos favorite Antinous in posthumous portraits thatfashion him as pharaoh432 The woman is clothed in adiaphanous garment that hugs her body and bares herankles in a length that would be otherwise unseemly fora Greek (or Roman) matron With their pose and gar-ments then these patrons assume an intentionally Egyp-tian aspect Simultaneously however with their portraitheads they retain not only their Roman identity but alsothe specificity of their individual identity for ndash despitetheir Egyptian pose and garb ndash these statues indeed appearas true portraits The seeming verisimilitude of their facesdistances these figures from all other images in the sculp-tural program of the tomb It underlines the impulsetoward individuality rooted in the Hellenistic world thatflourished in Rome and the regions it influenced andthis verisimilitude separates these statues from Egyptianlsquoportraitrsquo types

The doorway to the burial room ndash the naos or chapel ofthe temple-tomb ndash is flanked by Agathodaimons (lsquogooddaemonsrsquo in the form of snakes) (see Fig 215)433 whichmirror one another434 They face inward toward theopening to the burial room as they coil themselves atopstands that assume the form of a truncated Egyptian naosEach snake is capped with an Egyptian pschent crownsignifying its connection to royalty for in Alexandria theAgathodaimon received both public and private cults435

But these Agathodaimons also each support a Greekthyrsus and a Greek kerykeion in its coils The kerykeion(caduceus) a signifier of Hermes is a common attributeof Agathodaimons on coins of Roman emperors436 butthe thyrsus is rarely if ever pictured with Agathodaimonselsewhere and the coupling of the two staffs is unex-pected As the kerykeion connects the Agathodaimonswith Hermes the thyrsos connects them with Dionysos ndashtwo deities that engage multiple eschatological functions

Within mortuary context the kerykeion recalls Her-mes as psychopompos who leads the dead to the skiff thattraverses the river Styx and to Charon its navigator italso connects to Hermes as chthonios who harrows theUnderworld at will The thyrsos for its part activatesthe chthonic aspect of Dionysos437 recalling his mys-teries and his importance in afterlife religion celebratedfor example on lsquoOrphicrsquo gold leaves Diodorus Siculus(Bibl 3656) writing in the first century bce consid-ered Orphic mystery rites the same as Dionysiac438 andlsquoOrphicrsquo gold leaves ndash which preserve poems found inmortuary context once attributed to Orpheus ndash confirmthe connection One lsquoOrphicrsquo gold tablet for examplewhich sets out directions for the journey ends

and they will grant you to drink from the Lake ofMemory

And you too having drunk will go along the sacred road onwhich other glorious initiates and bacchoi travel439

Notably a relatively large share of Alexandriarsquos earlypopulation derived from regions in which lsquoOrphicrsquo goldleaves or lsquoOrphicrsquo texts can be attested and furthermoreit has been persuasively argued that the Grand Processionof Ptolemy II which was recorded by Kallixeinos andwhich must have taken place in Alexandria some timein the early 270s bce carried lsquoOrphicrsquo elements on itsfloats440 It is possible too that the library at Alexandriagiven the breadth of its holdings contained scrolls withlsquoOrphicrsquo texts

In addition to their connection to Hermes andDionysos the Agathodaimons provide a formidablepresence at the entrance to the tomb Their role asguardians441 is emphasized by the Greek hoplite shieldscarved in low relief on the wall above them that bearapotropaic gorgoneions set within winged quatrefoilsThe Agathodaimons on the exterior wall of the burialchamber provide an introduction to their protectivecounterparts on the corresponding interior wall of theroom and render double protection for those deceasedentombed within the sarcophagi of the burial room

The Burial RoomResponding to the protective images on the exterior ofthe burial room Anubis the Egyptian guardian of thenecropolis is seen in two different aspects on the interiorentrance wall of the room Poised to either side of thedoorway the images of Anubis face toward the openingposed on the same sort of egyptianizing naos-like standsthat support the Agathodaimons on the other side of the

69



218 Alexandria Kom el-Shoqafa Main Tomb the BurialChamber the Anthropomorphic Anubis (Author Photo)

wall One version of Anubis sees him as anthropomor-phic the other as anguiped but although the form ofthe deity differs the poses mirror one another and eachaspect is garbed in military dress

The version of Anubis with the head of a jackal anda human body stands frontally in a differentiated posewith his weight borne by his left leg and with his headcrowned by a solar disc turned to his right (Fig 218)Assuming the pose developed for Hellenistic rulers andappropriated for Roman emperors he holds in hisupraised left hand a spear or scepter on which he leanshis weight and with his lowered right he holds a shieldthat rests on the ground He wears a muscle cuirass withpteryges (flaps) over a short chiton and has a short swordsuspended at his left hip from a baldric over his rightshoulder

Anubis in military garb is a relatively common Romanreinterpretation of the Egyptian guardian of the necrop-olis although the meaning of the image is problem-atic Henri Seyrig takes the military garb as apotropaicwhereas Jean-Claude Grenier and Jean Leclant give it thedouble meaning of protection and victory over death andErnst H Kantorowicz and Roberto Paribeni see it tak-ing its model from emperors and therefore incorporatingregality442 In the context of the image in the burial roomof the Main Tomb any or all of these interpretations maybe correct

The anthropoid Anubis at Kom el-Shoqafa and a sim-ilarly garbed and posed Anubis that appears on the piersof the painted Roman-period Stagni tomb from Alexan-driarsquos western necropolis443 demonstrate one aspect of thesophisticated bilingual style that contiguity with Egyptencouraged In these images the deity assumes his nor-mal Egyptian cynocephalic human form but he dressesthe part of a Roman legionary as he assumes the chi-astic pose that is the hallmark of classicizing sculptureIn pose garb and execution the Egyptian guardian ofthe necropolis is refashioned in Roman terms but healso takes on an extended meaning as his assimilation to aRoman centurion ndash a Roman guard as it were ndash at oncereiterates and broadens his Egyptian function This bilin-gualism recalls the similar iconographical efficiency ofthe Egyptian sphinxes crouching before the main facadein the tomb Moustapha Pasha 1 and the doorways ofAnfushy Tomb II and the ba-bird of the Saqiya TombDespite the Classical heritage each acknowledges eachreferences Egyptian signs and symbols to create a newand more potent image of supernatural protection for itstomb

The other entrance wall of the Main Tomb shows amore exceptional version of Anubis he is in similar mar-tial form but with a snaky tail instead of human legs(Fig 219) Garbed similarly to the anthropoid Anubishe adds only a short chlamys pinned on his right shoulderand replaces the solar disc with an atef crown He holdsa spear in his upraised right hand and grasps the end ofhis chlamys with his left444 Despite (or perhaps becauseof) his uncanonical form this figure must be the primaryone of the two because he supports his weapon in hiscorrect right hand445 The image of an anguiped Anubisis very rare but not unknown beyond his depiction inthe Main Tomb though none finds Anubis garbed as aRoman legionary446 Nevertheless Anubis in anguipedform is exceptional and the snaky-legged Anubis as aRoman soldier is currently unique to the Main Tomb

70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR

219 Alexandria Kom el-Shoqafa Main Tomb the BurialChamber the Anguiped Anubis (Author Photo)

where he responds to and reiterates the function of theAgathodaimons on the exterior wall The image exem-plifies ndash as does the abduction of Persephone in the lsquoHallof Caracallarsquo niche ndash the iconoclastic creativity of theAlexandrian artists It stands as yet another example ofthe intentional integration of Roman and Egyptian con-ceptual and formal elements employed by Alexandrians toproduce a new means of expression in a city whose pop-ulation had accumulated the knowledge to address thiscomplex past These images of Anubis (and the ones onthe piers of the Stagni tomb) also perpetuate the ancientGreek tradition of lsquomonstersrsquo guarding the tomb seen inAlexandria in the sphinxes in Moustapha Pasha Tomb 1and Anfushy Tomb II the ba-bird of the Saqiya Tomb sar-cophagus and the Agathodaimons and gorgoneion shieldemblems on the exterior of the burial chamber of theMain Tomb

The plan of the burial chamber of the Main Tombin consonance with the generally Classical plan of theentire tomb assumes a Roman form Trabeated niches(but with arced ceilings) cut into its walls create its cruci-form plan and a rock-cut sarcophagus set into each of theniches gives the room its triclinium aspect447 Apart frombeing a Roman modification of the kline chamber andin addition to the triclinium form specifically identifyingthe sarcophagi as metaphorical banqueting couches assuggested earlier in this chapter other considerationsmay also have prompted the cutting of triclinium-shapedburial rooms in Roman-period tombs Certainly theGreat Catacombrsquos real usable triclinium fitted out withrock-cut klinai near the tombrsquos entrance demonstrates theimportance of the funerary feast that took place at thetomb and the memorial meals that would have occurredduring the year in commemoration of the dead andthe Totenmahl reliefs ndash one of the standard motifs forRoman gravestones in the Egyptian chora448 ndash which byplacing the deceased at a herorsquos banquet heroized himor her may have propelled the eschatological impulseto memorialize the banquet of the dead in architecturalform449

In contrast to the triclinium plan but in concert withthe Egyptian architectural elements in the pronaos of thetomb each of the three niches of the triclinium-shapedburial chamber is defined by engaged piers carved torepeat those of the antechamber Yet antithetical to thearchitectural framework of the niche each niche in theMain Tomb encloses a fully realized Roman garland sar-cophagus450 and each narrative that enlivens the walls ofthe niches is framed above with a Classical egg-and-dartmotif Nevertheless complementing the piers the figuraldecoration of the Main Tomb is also egyptianizing Con-sonant with the two versions of Anubis on the entrancewall that fuse Egyptian and Graeco-Roman traditionsegyptianized narratives decorate the back and side wallsof the niches above the Roman sarcophagi according theniches their bilinguality

The symmetry of the cruciform-shaped room isemphasized both by its figural decoration and by thetreatment of the sarcophagus facades for though all thesarcophagi are carved as garland sarcophagi details of thegarland of the central sarcophagus differ from those ofthe other two Their major motifs remain the same how-ever and the duplication of these motifs underscores theintention of the ornament all sarcophagi show frontalheads (or masks) of apotropaic figures The central sar-cophagus fastens a gorgoneion and a frontal satyr head to

71



220 Alexandria Kom el-Shoqafa Main Tomb the Burial Chamber the Central Niche (AuthorPhoto)

the circlet that pins the garland to the wall (Fig 220) andthe lateral ones fix two gorgoneions to the backgroundwall in the semicircles created above the swags Protec-tive devices thus reach their apogee in the Main Tombwhich is multiply protected by the gorgoneions embla-zoned on the hoplite shields and the Agathodaimons onthe exterior of the chamber the two versions of themilitaristic Anubis facing the doorway on the chamberrsquosinterior wall and the gorgoneions and satyr masks on theroomrsquos sarcophagi

In accord with the details of the sarcophagus decora-tion the Main Tombrsquos symmetry is further enhanced bythe figurative treatment of the walls of the niches Recall-ing the upper scenes on the back walls of the Persephonetombs in the Nebengrab as well as those depicted inother tombs in Alexandria the back wall of the MainTombrsquos central niche shows the lustration of the mummy(see Fig 220) Nevertheless despite the frequency ofthe lustration scene in the tombs at Kom el-Shoqafa andelsewhere in Alexandria few mummies are found in thecatacombs at Kom el-Shoqafa and few mummies ndash ortraces of mummies ndash have been found in Alexandria at all

Unlike elsewhere in Roman-period Egypt in Alexan-dria the appropriation of mummification is not based onthe physicality of mummification but on the use of theimagery of mummification ndash and often its extended nar-rative ndash to visualize Greeksrsquo own concepts of the afterlife

In contrast to the frequency of the theme of the backwall of the central niche in Alexandria the back walls ofthe left and right niche ndash which are almost perfect mirrorimages of one another ndash show scenes that are uniquein Alexandria Each lateral niche embraces an image ofthe Apis bull standing on a truncated naos-like pedestalHe is sheltered by the wings of Isis-Marsquoat who standsbehind him holding out the ostrich feather of truth inher farther hand In front of him across a small altar amale in a kilt and corset a short mantle slung across hisneck and wearing a pschent crown holds out a decoratedcollar (Figs 221 and 222) Unless the royal crown is usedcavalierly the male figure should be an Egyptian pharaohor a Roman emperor in his Egyptian manifestation

Though the central niche is privileged by its undupli-cated subject compositionally uniting the three sceneson the back walls of the niches is their general bilateral

72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR

221 Alexandria Kom el-Shoqafa Main Tomb the Burial Chamber the Back Wall of Right Niche(Author Photo)

222 Alexandria Kom el-Shoqafa Main Tomb the Burial Chamber the Back Wall of Left Niche(Author Photo)

73



223 Alexandria Kom el-Shoqafa Main Tomb the BurialChamber the Left Wall of the Central Niche (after Gillieronin Bissing 1901 pl VIII)

symmetry although the Apis bulls which face toward therear of the tomb permit the scenes on the left and rightwalls to appear directional All scenes admit anomaliesbut none of these deviations are especially out of place ina Roman-period context451

In contrast to the back wall of the central nichewhich is singled out by its subject the lateral walls of allthe niches are treated similarly All admit symmetricallydisposed two-figure compositions though the charactersdepicted and their gestures differ and all the figures faceone another across an altar that is raised on variouslyshaped stands

The left wall of the central niche depicts a male fig-ure facing a priest across the altar on which a fire burnswithin a cylindrical vessel probably filled with incense(Fig 223)452 The male figure453 crowned with a solardisc wears only a long garment bound about his waistIn his right hand he holds out an object difficult to inter-pret it appears to be flexible and soft and althoughit does not precisely replicate the traditional Egyptianform it might be the ubiquitous srips of linen ndash ldquofab-ric bands that signify rebirthrdquo454 ndash that mortuary figuresoften hold He bends slightly and awkwardly from thewaist and raises his left hand to his face in the Greekmale gesture of mourning Behind him is a partial car-touche with pseudo-hieroglyphs that reoccurs in all thetwo-figure scenes Opposite the mourning male a lector

priest barefoot and wearing a long wrapped garmentwith a panther skin draped over it holds up a scroll fromwhich he reads out the appropriate spells

The priest on the right wall of the central niche faces awoman across the altar (Fig 224) The two feathers thepriest wears in his headband identify him as a pterophoros(wearer of feathers) a hierogrammatos or sacred scribe inthe cult of Isis455 Like the priest on the left-hand wallhe wears a long garment but his is slightly shorter ofthicker cloth and differently arranged and decorated andthe animal skin that denotes his office is also differentlydraped He holds out a lotus () in his right hand andextends a plate that supports a spouted lustration vesselin his upraised left The woman who faces him acrossthe altar wears a layered wig and a long clinging fringedgarment that permits a view of her body underneathLike her male counterpart she is crowned with a solardisc456

The scenes on the side walls of the lateral niches presentother characters and like the scenes on their back wallsthey correspond to one another though they lack thealmost perfect mirror-imaging of the scenes at the rear ofthe niches

On the left wall of left niche a female wrapped ina tight garment faces the falcon-headed son of HorusQebehsenuef who wears a pschent crown (Fig 225)Unlike most of the figures in the confrontations on theshort walls these figures are in true profile Each fig-ure holds a scepter in hands that emerge from its tightly

224 Alexandria Kom el-Shoqafa Main Tomb the BurialChamber the Right Wall of the Central Niche (after Gillieronin Bissing 1901 pl VII)

74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR

225 Alexandria Kom el-Shoqafa Main Tomb the BurialChamber the Left Wall of the Left Niche (after Gillieron inBissing 1901 pl IX)

wrapped garment and each has a decorated swath offabric pulled tightly across its shoulders that falls verticallyin front of its body so that its decoration is visible Sons ofHorus normally do not wear crowns or hold staffs457 butQebehsenuefrsquos crown and scepter accord with the gen-erally regal tone encountered throughout the imagery ofthe Main Tomb The female figure wears a layered wigand a band fronted by a uraeus across her forehead andshe is crowned with a solar disc like the male and femalein the lateral walls of the central niche Rowe interpretsher as Isis458 but given the symmetry of the decorationthis figure ndash which corresponds to a male figure directlyacross the tomb on the right wall of the right niche ndashis unlikely to be an Egyptian deity and the solar crowndemands another explanation

On the right wall of the left-hand niche a figure thatis completely mummiform faces a pharaoh who is nudebut for a shendyt-kilt a pectoral and a nemes cappedwith a hem-hem crown (Fig 226) The pharaoh holds therolled cloth of authority in his lowered left hand whichis no longer extant459 and extends the feather of Marsquoattoward the mummy with his right The male mummy-like figure who wears a false beard and is crowned witha solar disc stands properly in the Egyptian compositestance with his face and feet in profile and upper bodyfrontal but remarkably his arms and joined hands appearplastically indicated beneath his garment The garmentitself is crossed with a diamond pattern a simplification

226 Alexandria Kom el-Shoqafa Main Tomb the BurialChamber the Right Wall of the Left Niche (after Gillieronin Bissing 1901 pl X)

of the reticulated bandaging characteristic of Roman-period mummies and in each diamond-shaped coffervaried signs seem to denote bodies associated with thecelestial realm460

The composition of the left wall of the right niche(Fig 227) mirrors that of the right wall of the left niche(see Fig 226) although the details differ The pharaohor Roman emperor in the guise of pharaoh is crownedwith a solar disc fronted by a uraeus instead of a hem-hem crown and he extends the feather of truth to amummiform figure who holds a staff in his hands461

This figure stands in the same composite pose as the oneof the right wall of the left niche but his hands emergefrom his mummiform cloak to grasp a staff In contrast tothe garment of the first mummy-like figure his garmentis patterned with a horizontal-vertical grid ndash one that isalso employed to distinguish mummy bandages ndash whichcontains less-readable signs in the boxes created

The right wall of the right niche (Fig 228) follows thestructure of the left wall of the left niche (see Fig 225) Amummiform male figure faces Hapy the baboon-headedson of Horus both figures confronting one another intrue profile stances Both are crowned with solar discsand both have decorated swaths of fabric falling verticallyin front of their bodies as do the figures on the left wall ofthe left niche462 but the male adds two strings of amuletslooped across its lower body Alan Rowe identifies themale figure as Imsety463 another of the sons of Horus

75



227 Alexandria Kom el-Shoqafa Main Tomb the BurialChamber the Left Wall of the Right Niche (after Gillieronin Bissing 1901 pl IV)

but this identification is improbable The lateral scenes inthe side niches correspond so closely to one another thatit would be remarkable if the male were meant as Imsety(or any deity) given the complementary female figurethat he parallels464

Clearly a strongly symmetrical structure underlies notonly the architecture of the burial room but also consti-tutes the impetus behind its pictorial program The lustra-tion scene of the central niche is flanked to left and rightby priests facing human figures a male on one side anda female of the other Both male and female face inwardtoward the back of the niche and consequently towardthe back of the tomb The side niches complete the sym-metrical arrangement for not only do the central scenesof the lateral niches mirror one another but a directcorrespondence between their left and right walls aug-ments the symmetry Hapy and Qebehsenuef are pairedacross from one another on the lateral walls closest to theentrance to the tomb The two mummy-like figures faceone another across the royal figures that engage them andwho stand back to back across the room This preciseconceptual parallelism demands that a unified programmust govern all the figured scenes in the niches

In Monumental Tombs of Ancient Alexandria I argued forthe identification of the lsquoemperorrsquo in the large panels inthe lateral niches as Vespasian465 It is indeed possible thatVespasian is honored here but Rowe more perceptivelysees the emperor on the left wall of the right niche whowears the solar-disc crown as deceased and the one who

228 Alexandria Kom el-Shoqafa Main Tomb the BurialChamber the Right Wall of the Right Niche (after Gillieronin Bissing 1901 pl III)

wears the hem-hem crown as his live successor466 I nowthink however as is evident from my description of thescenes that the precise identity of the royal figure maybe of less consequence than his station and I addressthis concern later In Monumental Tombs I followed to agreat extent Rowersquos identification of the nonroyal figureson the walls of the Main Tomb but I now think thatneither he nor I was correct Jean-Yves Empereur initiallyqueried the identity of the mummy-like figure with thestaff as other than a mummy467 and I discounted hisinterpretation noting that he had ignored the figurersquosstaff With respect to his perspicacity I should like torevisit the identification of the all the figures in the roomin an attempt to unravel the meaning of the sculptedprogram of the burial chamber

The iconographic treatment of the deities Horus andThoth in the central niche indicate that the designer ofthe tombrsquos imagery was fully cognizant of the principles oftraditional Egyptian representation It may be surprisingto see the two deities flanking the bier ndash Isis and Nephthyswould be a more likely pair ndash but by the Roman periodHorusrsquo and Thothrsquos appearance in lustration scenes is welldocumented468 and though both deities wear crownsthat may appear exceptional these headdresses can alsobe paralleled elsewhere469 The knowledgeable icono-graphical treatment of figures in this scene speaks againstRowersquos identification (that I had previously followed) ofthe mummiform figures on the side walls of the lateralniches as Osiris and Ptah since these figures lack their

76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR

normal identifiers and the symmetrical presentation inthe central niche and elsewhere in this tomb argues for acoherent program

I now take these mummiform figures as the deceasedpatrons of the tomb This identification is buttressed bythe mummiform figures that represent the deceased inHouse-tomb 21 at Tuna el-Gebel the tomb of Petosirisat Dakhla (both discussed in further chapters) thatof Qtjjnws in Ezbet Baschandi and elsewhere470 AtKom el-Shoqafa the female mummiform figure facingQebehsenuef on the left lateral wall of the left niche(Rowersquos Isis see Fig 225) wears the same wig as thefemale facing the pterophoros in the right lateral wall ofthe central niche (see Fig 224) the male on the rightwall of the right niche (Rowersquos Imsety) who faces Hapy(see Fig 228) wears a hairstyle similar to ndash though notprecisely the same as ndash that of the male on the left lateralwall of the central niche (see Fig 223) Each of the fourmale and female figures whom I now take as human iscrowned with a solar disc and I suggest that the male andfemale mummiform figures on the side walls of the lateralniches are intended as the same individuals as those onthe side walls of the central niche I further propose thatthe solar-disc crown designates not only deities and thedead but also the dead as assimilated to Re and thereforeas accorded a celestial afterlife

The two humans on the walls that flank the cen-tral niche are the only nonroyal secular human fig-ures that do not assume the stance of a mummy theystand in a quasi-three-quarter view as they raise theirhands to the priests who face them Aside from thesolar discs that crown their heads their wigs and theirgarb appear unremarkable though the garments of boththe male and female can be paralleled in figures asso-ciated with the cult of Isis The womanrsquos garb is simi-lar to the mantle worn by Isis and female initiates intoher cult471 though she lacks the Isiac undergarment themalersquos long kilt wrapped around his waist though moregeneric also marks out adherents to the cult472 The lectorpriest that faces the male initiate is (with the sem-priest)the priest that traditionally officiates at Egyptian funeralsThe pterophoros that faces the female initiate howeveras previously noted is connected specifically with Isiacrites that offer a blessed afterlife473 And a blessed afterlifeappears to be the unifying theme throughout the tombThe mortal figures bearing solar crowns inhabit the celes-tial realm Based on the appearance of the pterophorosand the garments worn by the male and female whoaddress the priests on the side panels of the central niche

they achieve this state because of the beneficence of Isisand their initiation into her cult

The repetition of male and female in the lateral nichesand the equal weight afforded them within the imageryof the chamber correspond to the equal weight givento the representations of the figures in the niches in thepronaos of the tomb One detail however yet to be men-tioned suggests that the woman is the primary recipientof the chamber for in addition to its garlands and masksthe central sarcophagus shows a female figure recliningupon a mattress set on a pallet above the pendant garland(see Fig 220)474 The womanrsquos garment falls off her leftshoulder in a mark of motherhood475 The figure repli-cates the reality of Roman matrons reclining at a banquetand the mimetic motif of Roman women reclining onthe lids of their sarcophagi and presumably for this latterreason Rowe correctly identified her as the deceased476

The syntax of the chamber that places her directly belowthe mummy in the scene above strengthens Rowersquos sup-position and though the mummy may be depicted as amale this kind of gender-bending does not seem for-eign to treatment elsewhere (see Chapter Three and theimage of the mummy in Room 2 of House-tomb 21 inChapter Four) If indeed this woman is the primary recip-ient of the tomb she would be one of the few womenwhose luxury burial in Roman-period Alexandria can beidentified

The Imagery of the Main Tomb Situated withinAlexandrian Tomb DesignIn addition to the narrative of lustration encounteredon the back wall of the central niche and the protec-tive guardian figures seen throughout the tomb fur-ther aspects connect the Main Tomb to other tombs inAlexandria The royal imagery for example first encoun-tered with the nemes-crowned Egyptian sphinxes inMoustapha Pasha 1 and later in Anfushy II abetted by thepalatial wall decoration in the tombs of Pharos Island andthe Saqiya Tomb is seen too in the Main Tomb In addi-tion to the four pharaoh (or emperor) images Apis bulls ndashaside from their Graeco-Roman identification with Ser-apis the consort of Isis and the main deity of Alexandria ndashalso have a royal connection since the pharaoh is oftenassimilated to the Apis477 Their images on the panelsof the niches of the tomb moreover permit a connec-tion to Isis and her mysteries This latter connection isespecially clear in the central niche in the fringe-likedecoration of the femalersquos garment and the appearance ofa hierogrammatos but the generalized celestial imagery

77



229 Alexandria the Tigrane Tomb the Dome with Its Gorgoneion (Author Photo)

marked by the solar crowns also conjures up ApuleiusrsquoldquoRegina caelirdquo478 and the imagery of AlexandriarsquosTigrane Tomb further crystallizes this interpretation

The Tomb from Tigrane Pasha Street

The Main Tomb at Kom el-Shoqafa hints at the patronsas adherents of the cult of Isis and the Tigrane Tomb as Ihave previously argued presents the most convincing casefor active worship of Isis and her mysteries in AlexandriaThe Tigrane Tomb also substantiates the protective natureof the Alexandrian tomb in a way that is comforting toits Greek clientele as well as offering a different conceptof bilingualism from that previously defined479

In comparison to the scale of the Great Catacomb atKom el-Shoqafa the Tigrane Tomb which was discov-ered in 1952 in the eastern necropolis near the tombs atMoustapha Pasha480 appears exceedingly modest Extantwere one room fitted with loculi and another in theform of a triclinium-shaped burial chamber but only theburial chamber was removed from the earth The tri-

clinium shape of the burial chamber is formed as it is inthe Main Tomb at Kom el-Shoqafa and other Roman-period tombs in Alexandria by the arrangement of threeniches ndash in its case arcosolia ndash created by the sarcophagicarved from the living rock

The bilingualism in the Tigrane Tomb is uniqueamong that seen in all other Alexandrian tombs Withthe exception of the lustration of the mummy in the cen-tral niche the Tigrane Tomb abandons Egyptian subjectmatter to create a sense of the efficacy of Egypt insteadit depends on a simulacrum of Egyptian style The nar-ratives in the lateral niches in the tomb find no modelin the ancient Egyptian visual repertoire The stiff figureswith their attempt at composite poses however indicatethat the designer though lacking Egyptian content forthe scenes he was commissioned to create intended toreplicate Egyptian style in order to ensure an Egyptianguise for the narratives

The Tigrane burial room is covered by a shallow dome(Fig 229) and it is the painted dome that provides theapproximate date of the tomb It is well known that the

78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR

emperor Hadrian who ruled from 117 to 138 ce wasenamored with domes employing in his monumentsmyriad variations on the theme Thereafter Hadrianicdomes inspired painted ceilings in Rome and throughoutthe empire481 and the one in the Tigrane Tomb marksone of the most successful examples of the conceit Itis most likely then that the Tigrane Tomb dates eitherwithin or slightly after the Hadrianic period probablysomewhat later than the Main Tomb at Kom el-Shoqafa

In another Classical reference an image of a gor-goneion peers through the painted oculus of the Tigranedome protecting the tomb from above Concurrentlyegyptianizing images on the lateral walls and the innerpilasters of the niches ndash seated figures of cynocephalusAnubis Horus falcons wearing crowns of Upper orLower Egypt recumbent sphinxes with nemes head-dresses and snakes including cobras ndash secure the bodiesinterred in the sarcophagi they guard Snakes too rearup on the short walls of the burial chamber that flank thedoorway protecting the tomb as they do on the exteriorwall of the burial chamber in the Main Tomb at Komel-Shoqafa Thus the inviolability of each burial niche inthe Tigrane Tomb is preserved as is the entire interiorspace of the room

The snakes on the entrance wall are also identifiedwith the cult of Isis A poorly realized crown formedof sun-disc and horns identifies the left snake as Isis-Thermouthis (the Egyptian grain goddess who fre-quently assumed the form of an asp or a cobra) thoughin the Tigrane Tomb other attributes often associatedwith the Graeco-Roman iconography for this deityare lacking482 The right snake is characterized by itspschent crown and beard as Serapis (or the AgathosDaimon the consort of Isis-Thermouthis or of Isis inher role as Agatha Tyche) although it too lacks furtherattributes483

On the short walls that lead to the burial chambertwo male figures each placed in a panel under an imageof an Apis bull escort the visitor into the room Garbedin kilts and corsets they add the pharaohrsquos nemes head-dress and beneath their chins very narrow lines indicatethey also wear the false beard of a pharaoh (Fig 230)Whether the lsquopharaohrsquo figures in the Main Tomb at Komel-Shoqafa are indeed emperors or just meant to recallregality the figures in the much smaller Tigrane Tombshed any connection with an emperor Rather they rep-resent an lsquoEgyptian figurersquo coupled with intimations ofroyalty which is reemphasized by the images of the Apisbulls above them Each male figure carries a situla in his

230 Alexandria the Tigrane Tomb the Male Figure in theEntrance Corridor to the Burial Room (Author Photo)

lowered hand and it is probable that these vessels aremeant to mark the deceased patrons as adherents to theinitiatory cult of Isis

This interpretation is borne out in the decoration ofthe three arcosolia The central niche shows a mummyflanked by female figures ndash intended surely as Isis andNephthys ndash who hold palm branches in their hands andby Horus falcons supported by alabaster stands (Pl VIII)Whether the female figures are intended as epiphaniesof the goddesses or as priestess avatars for the goddessesis difficult to determine (and perhaps any distinction isinconsequential) but I now prefer the latter interpreta-tion Frederick Brenk has pointed out to me that thewings the right-hand female figure wears seem rather tobe part of a costume than the wings of deities484 andboth females act within a space set back from the podi-ums that support the Horus falcons as if on a stage Thescene appears as a performance

79



A winged disc hovers overhead extending a Roman-styled garland in its claws The configuration recalls boththe winged discs that have traditionally terminated Egyp-tian stelae and Greek and Roman funerary garlands Yetwhether the garland is meant to evoke the offering offunerary garlands ndash as is seen in Greek imagery and inthe tomb of Petosiris at Tuna el-Gebel ndash or just the dis-play of garlands ndash as in the real garlands and the paintedsimulacra in Alexandrian tombs ndash is difficult to discernthough I think the latter interpretation is probably themore likely

The Tigrane scene certainly references the canonicalimage of the death of Osiris but I do not think that themummy is meant to be Osiris485 The Tigrane mummy iswrapped in contemporaneous Roman-period reticulatedbandaging and it lies not on the traditional lion-bed buton a contemporaneous kline with a duck-headed ful-crum and turned legs that cast shadows on the intention-ally ill-defined ground The cloth on the bier is treatedwith fine lines to indicate the folds into which it fallsand the plinths of the stands that support the falcons aretreated in one-point perspective The cast shadows thetreatment of the looping folds of the bier-cloth the dis-position of the figures in space by the rejection of a singlegroundline and the perspectival treatment of the basesof the stands that support the Horus falcons are inten-tional as their absence from the scenes in the other twoarcosolia demonstrates and these details place this imageof the deceased in the quotidian world These elementsboth remove the mummy from representing Osiris andpermit this image to act similarly to those of the Hel-lenically drawn images of the deceased in tombs of thechora discussed in Chapter Five that also differentiatethe mundane realm from the metaphysical486

The lateral niches support the interpretation of themummy in the central niche as representing a deceasedhuman male and also support the interpretation of themales in the entranceway as devotees in the cult of IsisUnlike the central niche however which is easily readbecause of its reliance on Egyptian iconographical proto-types the lateral niches find no parallel in either Egyptianor Classical representation

The left niche shows a frontal male holding palmbranches and flanked by winged nemes-headdressedtrousered males to either side as another disc spreads itswings above the group (Pl IX) Two jackals sit attentivelyat the frontal malersquos feet and the entire scene is closed offby colonnettes that carry large oval beribboned objectsthat Adriani thought were tympana487 but that I take as

greatly oversized eggs488 Like the mummy in the cen-tral niche and like the figure in the right niche that isdiscussed later the frontal figure wears a garment with areticulated pattern and I have previously interpreted thisfigure (and continue to do so) as an initiate having gonethrough the simulated death ndash explained by Apuleius(Metamorphoses XI21 2835 XI23 28511ndash15) ndash hismummy wrappings falling away as he emerges nude toassume apparel fitting his new status489 He like the twolsquogoddessesrsquo in the central niche holds palm brancheswhich are connected directly with the cult of Isis490

It is most probable that in cultic monuments as withfor example a triumphant athlete in a mosaic from theBaths of Caracalla now in the Vatican491 these branchesspeak to victory but in the case of the initiate it is thevictory over death (see Apuleius Metamorphoses XI212838ndash9)

The right niche completes the narrative A young manwearing garb similar to the frontal male in the left niche ndashbut more complete ndash extends palm branches to the stand-ing goddess (or priestess stand-in) who in turn offershim sheaves of golden grain492 while a figure with acensor follows him (Pl X) With his leggings his imbri-cated tunic and his nemes headcloth the kneeling malefigure resembles the flanking males from the left nichealthough he lacks their wings The niches convey a nar-rative contending that the frontal male in the left nichehaving passed through the rigor of the ordeal has ndash inthe right niche ndash become an initiate and has assumed hisnew garments replicating those of the males in the leftniche493

GREEK ESCHATOLOGY AND THE

MYSTERY CULTS

Beginning in the Hellenistic period and continuingthrough the period of Roman conquest mystery cultspromising a blessed afterlife proliferated in Greece andthroughout the Roman world Initiation into the mys-teries promised a better life in this world and a continuedone in the world to come Greek mysteries set them-selves apart from other avenues as a means to achievesalvation As Walter Burkert notes ldquomost revealingrdquo isthe translation from Greek to Latin where mysteria trans-forms into initia myein into initiare and myesis into initia-tio494 Greek mysteries have initiation at their heart Theyare in Burkertrsquos words ldquoinitiation rituals of a voluntarypersonal and secret character that aimed at a change ofmind through experience of the sacredrdquo495 Pharaonic

80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR

Egyptian cult also involved secret things but in Egypt asexpressed recently by Martin Bommas mysteries lackedthe element of initiation In traditional Egyptian cult thedivine could be encountered only at a festival in prayerand upon death496

Though intuitively it might be expected that the Isiacmysteries known throughout the Greek and Romanworld had their genesis in Ptolemaic Egypt secure evi-dence for their performance in Egypt itself is slight Inhis magisterial study that collects both visual and textualsources relating to Isis and Serapis Reinhold Merkelbachcites only two sources from Egypt that appear to referencemysteries of Isis497 though a third ndash found in a number ofiterations ndash that is possibly a reflection of a Memphite are-talogy may conceivably be brought to bear498 For Greekmysteries involved secrecy and they invoked secrecy theproceedings of the mysteries had to remain unvoicedArchitecturally the lateral staircase of the private templeof Isis Hermanubis and Harpocrates from AlexandrianRas al-Soda499 and a similar one from a temple to Isisin the complex at Luxor500 might permit a means forthe epiphany of the goddess and herald mysteries per-formed within the naos501 but still most convincing arethe closely scripted visualizations in tombs especially inthe tomb from Tigrane Pasha Street

GREEK ESCHATOLOGY AND

ALEXANDRIArsquoS BILINGUAL RESPONSE

Bilingualism502 in Alexandrian tombs is a phenomenonapart from that seen elsewhere in Egypt and it entersinto both the tombsrsquo figural decoration and their architec-tural detail503 Hypogeum A confirms that elements fromGreece and Egypt early intersect in Alexandrian tombs ndashEgyptian loculi couple with Greek architectural units andGreek domestic furniture to form the substance of thetomb ndash but the bilingualism inherent in Hypogeum Arsquosdescendants exceeds this convergence both visually andideationally This somewhat later bilingualism speaks bothto the incorporation of Egyptian cultural material intothe fabric of a visibly Greek tomb and more cogently tothe incorporation of Egyptian eschatological visual signsinto a Greek eschatological system The intended resultof this bilingual approach is to permit Egyptian signs andsymbols to stand as metaphors for Greek eschatologicalcontent Their appropriation simultaneously salutes theefficacy that Egypt brings to the deceasedrsquos navigation ofthe afterlife and enriches the paucity of a native Greek

visual vocabulary Egypt acts as metaphor to expresscontemporaneous Greek conceptions of the afterlife andits cult

Given the precociousness and diversity of its appear-ance in literary sources visualization of the afterlife in theGreek repertoire is surprisingly scarce Hades as a realmof the dead is early recorded throughout the Iliad as thedestination of the soul of the deceased yet later in theOdyssey (IV 561ndash565) its author has the sea-deity Pro-teus affirm that Menelaus will not die ldquobut to the Elysianplain and the bounds of the earth will the immortals con-vey [him] where dwells fair-haired Rhadamanthus andwhere life is easiest for menrdquo504 Slightly later Hesiod(Works and Days 169ndash173) speaks of the ldquoIslands of theBlessedrdquo where some of the heroes of the Trojan warldquowill live at the ends of the earth untouched by sor-row along the shore of deep swirling Ocean happyheroes for whom the grain-giving earth bears honey-sweet fruit flourishing thrice a year far from the deathlessgodsrdquo505 Yet despite these literary assurances (at least forthe mythic dead) visual depictions of the afterlife realmare exceedingly rare in either Greek or Roman tomb pro-grams though the slab from the back wall of the klineroom of the Saqiya Tomb (see Fig 212) and two locu-lus cover-slabs from Alexandrian tombs (see later) mayprovide a few of the rare exceptions

In the Ptolemaic period the most common decorationon the slabs that closed the loculi is a door composed oftwo leaves the upper one regularly shorter than the lowerone506 which find conceptual if not proportionally pre-cise parallels on the walls of many Etruscan tombs fromthe Archaic through the Hellenistic period

The entrance to the Underworld is a common motifin Etruscan tombs In Etruscan tombs however thesedoors ndash which form the sole decoration on the Alexan-drian loculus slab ndash are almost invariably designated byfurther signs ndash or by their narrative ndash as the doors to theUnderworld The twin figures of the Etruscan death-daemon Charun for example that flank the door in theHellenistic Tomba dei Caronti507 specify that the dooris the one to the Underworld and a small painting fromanother Etruscan tomb508 clarifies their identity even fur-ther Charun the daemon of the dead sits on a rockbefore an elaborate entrance ndash imagined as a hut withone door slightly ajar ndash as he awaits to usher the deceasedinto the Land of the Dead It is likely too that the doorson Alexandrian loculus slabs provide a similar physicalbarrier between the world of the living and that of thedead

81



231 Alexandria 24040 a Loculos Slab with a Gate (after Venit2002 35 fig 19)

Angeliki Kosmopoulou has identified a scene of twofigures picking apples on a funerary base from Kallitheanear Athens as representing the Elysian Fields509 andGreek vases are painted with narratives ndash the Garden ofthe Hesperides for example ndash that may metaphoricallyreference the land of the blessed Similarly the slab fromthe back wall of the kline chamber in the Saqiya Tombreferenced earlier (see Fig 212) that shows a nude malereclining under an arbor may be intended to recall theElysian Fields or the Isles of the Blessed and a loculus slabfrom Alexandria may provide a further example Exca-vated from the early Alexandrian cemetery at Hadra itshows ndash instead of the more common solid door ndash a gatefinished off with naturalistic spikes (Fig 231)510 Beyondthe gate two painted piers support an architrave hungwith garlands and beyond that is the empty landscapespace of the blue sky As noted by Adriani511 this loculusslab is one of the few that seems to imply what is beyondthe tomb and what is beyond the tomb appears to be theElysian Fields

Nevertheless the only definite visual reference to thehalcyon realm of the dead painted on the wall of a Greekor Roman tomb of which I am aware and that is certainis very late and is from Rome512 ndash a painting from the

tomb of a six-year-old girl Octavia Pollina that showsthe young girlrsquos arrival at the Elysian Fields or the Islesof the Blest Octavia Pollina assumes the iconography ofPersephone being abducted by Hades but rides insteadin a chariot driven by a Cupid and pulled by doves andHermes bids her enter a world where small figures ndashtwo with the butterfly wings of Psyche ndash wander amidthe roses watched over by Minerva and a statue of theunderworld deity Hekate

Images of the Underworld are more common thanthose of the Elysian Fields although they too are rarelyfound in tombs themselves From their appearance espe-cially on vases from the sixth century bce onward theyare defined by the figures that populate Hades Cer-berus Persephone and the unfortunate souls such asthose depicted in the most famous representation ofthe theme from the second-quarter of the fifth centurybce in the Knidian Lesche at Delphi (Paus 10281)or the rare image in a second-century-ce tomb from anecropolis near Tyre which depicts a thirsty Tantalushis name inscribed bending to drink the waters thatwill always recede from him as well as other under-world imagery513 or a unique example on the facadeof the Great Tomb at Lefkadia in Macedonia where thejudges of the Underworld here Aiakos and Rhadaman-thus greet the deceased ushered into their realm byHermes514

Given this general lack of the themersquos appearance in amortuary context a remarkable loculus slab (Fig 232)excavated by Mieczyslaw Rodziewicz and published byWiktor Daszewski and Ahmed Abd el-Fattah515 andthen Rodziewicz516 has a special place in funerary artAlthough the scholarsrsquo drawings differ slightly it is clearthat the loculus slab describes the Underworld more fullythan any other extant Greek or Roman representationAcross the water on which the Greek Charon who con-veys souls to the Underworld maneuvers his skiff is theentrance to Hades guarded by two Agathodaimons (ortwo mighty snakes) Populating the Underworld itself ndashseen at the upper right of the image ndash Ixion on his wheeland Sisyphus pushing the stone up the hill can be madeout and other figures ndash presumably those inhabitantsknown since their admission in the Odyssey ndash probablyalso inhabited the region

In the foreground at the lower right Rodziewicz seesa temple in front of (or within) which two figures appearThe most surprising aspect of the image is the thyrsus ofthe figure in the lower center to our left of the apparentlydeceased figure that identifies him not as the expected

82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR

232 Loculus Slab from a Cemetery East of Chatby with anImage of the Underworld (after Venit 2002 112 fig 96)

Hermes but as Dionysos which provides a connectionto the Bacchic mysteries

Even in a period that witnessed the proliferation ofmystery cults promising a blessed afterlife ndash and despitethe latter image and those from the Tyre tomb that spec-ify the Underworld the loculus slab from Hadra andthe image of the reclining figure in the Saqiya Tombthat possibly show the Elysian Fields and the Romantomb of Octavia Pollina that certainly does ndash Greek andRoman tomb interiors seemingly retain an aversion tothe depiction of a blessed Beyond The consequence inAlexandrian tombs is the felicitous co-option of motifsand imagery from Egypt that enriches their eschatologicalvisual vocabulary

HEROIZATION AND ALEXANDRIArsquoS

BILINGUAL RESPONSE

With the lsquodemocratizationrsquo of the afterlife beginning inthe Middle Kingdom Egypt early permitted ordinary

people the possibility of a blessed afterlife and mil-lennia after it appears for the common population inEgypt a generalized heroization (or even divinization)after death is suggested in Greece Guimier-Sorbets hasoffered the definition of a hero as someone who ldquotakenfrom humankind by death continues in an ideal exis-tence similar to that which religious imagination assignsproperly speaking to the godsrdquo517 but initially in Greeceheroization is limited to a small number of individu-als The lsquospecialrsquo dead ndash epic and mythical heroes suchas Herakles and Amphiarios and Bronze Age Aegeanwarriors mythological eponymoi and city founders andthose who died in battle ndash were worshiped as heroes atleast as early as the eighth century bce518 And thoughmythical heroes such as Herakles and Amphiarios wereearly awarded cults a hero cult for the ordinary deadbegins with certainty only in the Hellenistic period519

Heroization of the otherwise undistinguished dead isfirmly attested by inscription in Greece in the late-thirdcentury bce with the Testament of Epikteta from the Greekisland of Thera520 The inscription describes the institu-tion of a religious association on Thera consecrated tothe Muses Both male and female deceased members of afamily are awarded sacrifices and the altars in two tombsfrom Moustapha Pasha ndash Tombs 1 and 2 ndash and elsewherein Alexandrian tombs that were unearthed bearing theashes of the last sacrifice521 suggest active heroization ofthe quotidian dead in Alexandria as early as the thirdcentury bce

A hero cult arising in Alexandria at so early a timecan easily be postulated Thera was connected to Egyptearly in the Ptolemaic period the island provided a navalbase for Ptolemy in the second half of the third centurybce and the presence of an occupation force and itsinfluence on the cultural and religious life of the islandare attested by a series of inscriptions dedicated to theEgyptian divinities Serapis Isis and Anubis not only onbehalf of the garrison but also by other Theran citizenswho are found among the colleagues of the associationof Epikteta522 It is indeed possible that the concept ofa quotidian hero cult is not autochthonous to Thera butarrived there from Alexandria that had earlier embraceda comforting Egyptian eschatological concept

By the second century bce heroism of the commonperson is ldquofairly commonrdquo throughout the Aegean andincludes an Attic inscription from the Piraeus that pro-vides an instance of heroization within a religious associ-ation dedicated to Dionysos523 and connections betweenthe Piraeus and Egypt as already noted are earlier even

83



than those with Thera524 Thus it is not surprising thatwith the more extensive and intimate Egyptian contactthat Alexandriarsquos leading role in the Hellenistic worldprovided heroization of the ordinary dead penetratedthe eschatological psyche of its Greek population

By the Late Hellenistic period in many regions of theGreek world heroization began to be applied to all thedead without distinction525 Skeptical scholars had dis-missed the term lsquoherorsquo as merely synonymous with lsquothedeadrsquo526 but more recent investigation has refuted thisconjecture527 A Late-Hellenistic funerary stele of thescribe Ammonios for example discovered in a necrop-olis in the western Alexandrian quarter of Wardian andpublished by Etienne Bernand528 refers to the deceasedas heros who is invoked ldquolike the infernal gods with purelibations and offeringsrdquo Bernand529 correctly argues thatthe word heros does not signify simply lsquodeceasedrsquo andcites the phrase immediately following oὐχὶ θαvόvτακεκλόμεθrsquo (we do not call him the dead) noting that itimplies that the heros ldquopreserves a sort of existence thatis no longer a vέκυς [dead person] he is endowed with asort of superior life that belongs to that of the herosrdquo530

The image of Herakles painted on the jamb of the doorto the funerary chamber in Ras el Tin Tomb 3 (see Fig211) adds another Alexandrian element to the corpussince comparisons with images of Herakles from Delos531

permit this Herakles to be identified specifically as Her-akles Soter ndash Herakles who has triumphed over death andemerges as hero

In concert with the Alexandrian loculus-closing slabsthat refer to the world beyond the tomb the image ofthe reclining male from the Saqiya Tomb and HeraklesSoter who enlivens the pier in Ras el Tin Tomb 3 theceiling of the burial room in Anfushy II can also be takento herald the divination of the dead It is painted withinterlaced elements that form a trellis supporting a fictivetapestry into which are woven paintings of Greek mytho-logical figures unfortunately no longer visible even withinfrared photography but preserved in drawings madeupon their discovery These figures drawn in a style thatis clearly Classical have been seen as having Dionysiacconnotations532 which ndash given the cult of Dionysos andhis mysteries533 ndash is a fitting subject for a burial roomand Guimier-Sorbets has identified Alexandrian tentlikeceilings like this one as acting as funerary baldachins toexpress the heroic status of the deceased534

Yet despite these Greek signs that auger heroizationthose that reference Egypt are far more numerousThe patron statues in the Main Tomb at Kom

el-Shoqafa should probably be considered as heroizingreferences more certain are the human figures crownedwith solar discs on the Main Tombrsquos interior walls themany instances of the lustration of the mummy and theuse of style in the Tigrane Tomb as well as its subjectmatter

A further Egyptian sign that heralds heroization isthe broken lintel like that applied to the reconfigureddoorframe between the anteroom and burial chamber inAnfushy II For broken lintels replicated on the facadeof the tomb of Petosiris at Tuna el-Gebel are charac-teristic of Egyptian temples In her dissertation ldquoTheBroken-Lintel Doorway of Ancient Egypt and Its Dec-oration535rdquo Diana Wolfe Larkin has identified the sig-nificance of the element including its use to herald andmark the epiphany of a deity536 Its use in funerary con-text becomes more frequent in the Roman period whereit is especially applied to doors or to doorways of naiskoion loculus-closing slabs537 but another early use findsit in Alexandriarsquos western cemetery in the area of FortSaleh in a tomb probably dating like the redecoration ofAnfushy Tomb II to the first century bce538

In the Fort Saleh tomb the kline niche is occupied bya rock-cut kline-sarcophagus which imitates the type ofbronze bed with finely turned legs well known from Hel-lenistic and early-Roman contexts outside Alexandria539

but constituting a particularly opulent example of thetype540 The facade of the kline niche however assumesan Egyptian style It is framed by columns with lotusflowers inscribed near the base and crowned with com-posite floral capitals supporting the lintel and attachedto the inner faces of the columns is an Egyptian brokenlintel541

Loculus-closing slabs from Alexandria and other sitesinfluenced by Alexandrian tomb design present naiskoithat often employ broken lintels One slab from Alexan-driarsquos western necropolis of Mafrousa whose naiskosdoorway encloses a stand of papyri shows dependenceon both Greek and Egyptian architectural forms Fram-ing the doorway to the shrine Egyptian columns supportan architrave capped with a Greek triangular pedimentthe frieze however consists of winged uraeae framing acluster of lotus flowers with the left-hand lotus wearingthe white crown and the right-hand one the red Fur-ther realizing the Graeco-Egyptian schema of the archi-tecture is a frieze of uraeae below the architrave withdentils below it The lintel of the doorway itself is sup-ported by two piers and the piers are fronted by a brokenlintel542

84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR

233 Plinthine (Kom el-Nagous) Loculus Slab (Author Photo)

A series of loculus slabs retained in situ in the earlyHellenistic necropolis of Plinthine which owes a heavydebt to the capital provides a good range of the typesseen in Alexandria including one that is bilingual (Fig233) This slab is framed by so-called Nabatean columnswhich Daszewski has shown to have had their origin inAlexandria543 but in keeping with the mixed architec-tural heritage of the previous loculus slab these columnsflank an Egyptian naos composed of an arc-shaped ped-iment decorated with a solar disc a cavetto moldingabove a frieze of uraeae and piers that carry a brokenlintel

Other loculus slabs also contain broken lintels andthey embrace deities One architecturally complex locu-lus slab from Kom el Kazui which shows a seated Isiswithin the naiskos ndash her hand to her breast in a lactanspose and flanked by ba-birds ndash is in an entirely archi-tecturally egyptianizing form544 Another from Gabbariin Alexandriarsquos western necropolis also architecturallyegyptianizing has a broken lintel neatly framing a largeHorus falcon that stands within the naiskos545 Anotherslab from Marsa Matruh about 325 kilometers west ofAlexandria like the loculus slab from Gabbari shows anEgyptian naos though here framed with Greek horizon-tally divided partially fluted columns that also enclosesmall Horus falcons below (Fig 234)546 In contrast to

the former slabs here the broken lintel serves as well asa pedestal for recumbent sphinxes These egyptianizingand bilingual loculus slabs are complemented by a lime-stone funerary stele now in Turin that is given an evenclearer Classical turn of phrase it shows a nude AphroditeAnadyomene wearing the disc and horns of Isis set inan Egyptian naos framed by a broken lintel547 Thusin Alexandrian tombs the broken lintel must affirm theheroizing (or even the divinizing) of the dead

Despite the Classical demeanor of the Ras el Tin Her-akles the baldachins adduced by Guimier-Sorbets thereclining figure in the Saqiya Tomb and the classicizingloculus slabs as well as the epigraphic evidence providedby the Alexandrian grave stele heroization in Alexandriais more frequently manifested differently from elsewherein the Graeco-Roman world It most often assumes apurely Egyptian cast and the broken lintel adds to otheregyptianizing choices in Alexandrian tombs as imagerymost efficacious to heroize the dead

IMAGING THE AFTERLIFE

Tombs in Alexandria retain their Greek heritage in theirarchitectural details their treatment of the corpse theritual that they concretize and their traditional neces-sity to protect the tomb yet from the third century bce

234 Alexandria 24863 a Loculus Slab from Marsa Matruh(Author Photo)

85



through the Roman period almost all Alexandrian tombsincorporate Egyptian figures narratives signs or sym-bols The reason behind the co-option of Egyptianimagery is undoubtedly complex and none of the inter-pretations presented later is necessarily either indepen-dent or incorrect As I have noted the mere antiquityand authority of Egyptian afterlife religion may haveprovided the impetus for the inclusion of the Egyptiancontent In concert with this interpretation I have pre-viously argued that the augmentation of the Greek visualvocabulary by these Egyptian elements is also concur-rent with a deficiency in the Greek visual lexicon Yetsince underworld imagery is found in other than tombcontext in the Greek world (as well as on vases buriedin tombs) it is indeed possible that this new imagery inAlexandria may yet find another reason for Alexandriansalmost immediately renounced loculus slabs ndash like the twoextant ndash that envisioned the land that lay beyond that ofthe living

In their tombs in which the living consorted withthe dead Alexandrians seemingly chose to dispense withthe permeable wall that these slabs imagine to retain thephysical barrier between the dead and the living thatthe unperforated wall provided The foreignness implicitin both style and subject of Egyptian cultural artifactsmust have appeared less threatening as well as moregreatly efficacious As they gained greater familiarity withEgypt Alexandrians discovered there an already con-structed visual language that comfortably embraced theirown concerns but whose foreignness did not violate theintegrity of the tomb wall For all ndash or some ndash of thesereasons Alexandrians chose to employ the visual vocabu-lary of Egypt metaphorically to express their own escha-tological aims They appropriated this venerable visualvocabulary that carried with it the antiquity and author-ity and regality of Egypt and through its use devised anew lexicon and one unique to Alexandria to expresstheir own expectations for a blessed afterlife

86


EGYPT AS METAPHOR

halls discovered in the center of the city signal a contin-ued intellectual presence in Alexandria through the LateAntique322

In accordance with the classicizing intellectual andphysical vista of the city Alexandriarsquos monumental tombsalso assume a Graeco-Roman visage Deeply cut intothe nummulitic limestone Ptolemaic-period tombs aremultiroom buildings accessed by a staircase and often builtaround an open courtyard so that they were easily visiblefrom above Though in its aggregate the Alexandrian-type tomb follows no earlier Greek model it neverthelessincorporates conceptual inspiration from Macedonia323

klinai for example ndash which trebled in Greece as a bedbier324 and banqueting couch ndash are cut to lay out thedead permitting them to join in the funerary banquetWalls of Alexandrian tombs are decorated in both theGreek zone style325 and the Greek masonry style326 andarchitectural components ndash columns capitals and entab-lature friezes ndash all follow Greek architectural principles

Roman-period Alexandrian tombs conform to thePtolemaic model They too are multiroom tombs rockcut and entered through a staircase Roman-periodtombs however often dispense with the kline and itsniche and substitute instead a triclinium-shaped chamber(or chambers) with trabeated or arctuated niches formedby cutting Roman-type sarcophagi into the fabric of theroom Only in the Roman Imperial period and in Latin isa bed differentiated from a banqueting couch ndash lectus cubic-ularis for the one and lectus triclinaris for the other ndash 327

so the introduction of the triclinium-shaped chamber inRoman-period tombs does not merely indicate a con-temporary emendation of the banqueting metaphor butreflects a semantic change ensuring that a banquetingcouch is recognized as the intended allusion

Despite this inherent classicism an innate self-confidence in their Hellenic identity born from theirprivileged social position in Ptolemaic Egypt early per-mitted Alexandrians to admit Egyptian elements intotheir burial monuments Almost from their inception inthe late-fourth or early-third century bce Alexandrianmonumental tombs incorporate Egypt Loculi the longnarrow burial slots for inhumation and cremation burialsthat perforate the walls of even the earliest Alexandriantombs have their genesis in Egypt328 and at least as earlyas the third century bce figurative Egyptian elementsinvade the otherwise Classical fabric of the monumentaltomb During the period of Roman rule Alexandriansadopted further Egyptian architectural elements motifs

narratives and signs to express their own Greek eschato-logical necessities

Greeks early recognized the primacy Egypt held inmortuary religion and its authority is encapsulated byHerodotus329 In Book II of his Histories Herodotus whovisited Egypt between 449 and 430 bce330 frequentlyprivileges the antiquity of Egyptians over that of Greeksespecially in the realm of religion ldquo[Egyptians] arebeyond measure religious more than any other nationrdquoHerodotus (II37) writes He adds (Hdt II4) that Egyp-tians were the first to use the term twelve gods331 thatmany of the names of Greek gods come from Egypt (HdtII50 52 54) including that of Herakles (Hdt II43)332

and that from Egypt came the oracle of Zeus at Dodonain Greece (Hdt II54) Herodotus (II49) credits the ori-gin of Dionysiac ritual to Egypt as well as divinationfrom the entrails of sacrificial animals (Hdt II58) It wasthe Egyptians Herodotus (II64) continues who first for-bade intercourse with women in temples obviating thehieros gamos and the more generalized temple prostitutionof their Eastern neighbors333 a proscription encapsulatedin the Greek myth of Tydeus and Ismene

Herodotus (II85ndash89) devotes four chapters to Egyp-tian mourning customs and embalming and says thatEgyptians were the first to teach that the human soulis immortal (II123)334 The general privileging of Egyptin all matters religious regardless of the veracity of theseclaims and the antiquity claimed by Herodotus for Egyptin these matters instructed the educated Greek popula-tion and strongly informs the incorporation of Egyptianelements into the decoration of the monumental tombsof Alexandrian Greeks In Alexandria the inclusion ofEgyptian elements into an otherwise classicizing tombacts as a further means of ensuring a blessed afterlife forthe inhabitants of these tombs

PTOLEMAIC-PERIOD TOMBS

The earliest Ptolemaic tomb that best exemplifies theunderlying model for Alexandrian tombs as well as theirburgeoning bilingualism is Hypogeum A in the cemeteryat Chatby335 which hugs the coast just beyond the puta-tive line of the eastern wall of ancient Alexandria Onlyslightly later than the tomb of Petosiris at Tuna el-GebelHypogeum A is probably to be dated no later than 280bce336 It is the earliest fully realized monumental tombextant in Alexandria and it is directly ancestral to all laterAlexandrian monumental tombs Like later Alexandrian

51





Hypogeum A






52


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








53








54


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






55









56


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








57









58


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






59




The Saqiya Tomb






60


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






61










62


EGYPT AS METAPHOR


ROMAN-PERIOD TOMBS







63











64


EGYPT AS METAPHOR







65









66


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






67







68


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










69









70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






71









72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86





Hypogeum A






52


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








53








54


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






55









56


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








57









58


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






59




The Saqiya Tomb






60


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






61










62


EGYPT AS METAPHOR


ROMAN-PERIOD TOMBS







63











64


EGYPT AS METAPHOR







65









66


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






67







68


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










69









70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






71









72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








53








54


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






55









56


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








57









58


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






59




The Saqiya Tomb






60


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






61










62


EGYPT AS METAPHOR


ROMAN-PERIOD TOMBS







63











64


EGYPT AS METAPHOR







65









66


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






67







68


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










69









70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






71









72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86








54


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






55









56


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








57









58


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






59




The Saqiya Tomb






60


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






61










62


EGYPT AS METAPHOR


ROMAN-PERIOD TOMBS







63











64


EGYPT AS METAPHOR







65









66


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






67







68


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










69









70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






71









72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






55









56


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








57









58


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






59




The Saqiya Tomb






60


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






61










62


EGYPT AS METAPHOR


ROMAN-PERIOD TOMBS







63











64


EGYPT AS METAPHOR







65









66


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






67







68


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










69









70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






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EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86









56


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








57









58


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






59




The Saqiya Tomb






60


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






61










62


EGYPT AS METAPHOR


ROMAN-PERIOD TOMBS







63











64


EGYPT AS METAPHOR







65









66


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






67







68


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










69









70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






71









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73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








57









58


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






59




The Saqiya Tomb






60


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






61










62


EGYPT AS METAPHOR


ROMAN-PERIOD TOMBS







63











64


EGYPT AS METAPHOR







65









66


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






67







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EGYPT AS METAPHOR










69









70


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73












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75










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78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








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MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86









58


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






59




The Saqiya Tomb






60


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






61










62


EGYPT AS METAPHOR


ROMAN-PERIOD TOMBS







63











64


EGYPT AS METAPHOR







65









66


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






67







68


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69









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73












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MYSTERY CULTS


80


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EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






59




The Saqiya Tomb






60


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






61










62


EGYPT AS METAPHOR


ROMAN-PERIOD TOMBS







63











64


EGYPT AS METAPHOR







65









66


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






67







68


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










69









70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






71









72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86




The Saqiya Tomb






60


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






61










62


EGYPT AS METAPHOR


ROMAN-PERIOD TOMBS







63











64


EGYPT AS METAPHOR







65









66


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






67







68


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










69









70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






71









72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






61










62


EGYPT AS METAPHOR


ROMAN-PERIOD TOMBS







63











64


EGYPT AS METAPHOR







65









66


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






67







68


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










69









70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






71









72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86










62


EGYPT AS METAPHOR


ROMAN-PERIOD TOMBS







63











64


EGYPT AS METAPHOR







65









66


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






67







68


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










69









70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






71









72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86


EGYPT AS METAPHOR


ROMAN-PERIOD TOMBS







63











64


EGYPT AS METAPHOR







65









66


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






67







68


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










69









70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






71









72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86











64


EGYPT AS METAPHOR







65









66


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






67







68


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










69









70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






71









72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86


EGYPT AS METAPHOR







65









66


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






67







68


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










69









70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






71









72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86









66


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






67







68


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










69









70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






71









72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






67







68


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










69









70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






71









72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86







68


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










69









70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






71









72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










69









70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






71









72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86









70


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






71









72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86


EGYPT AS METAPHOR






71









72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86









72


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86


EGYPT AS METAPHOR



73












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86












74


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









75










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86










76


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








77











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86











78


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86


EGYPT AS METAPHOR








79











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86











MYSTERY CULTS


80


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86


EGYPT AS METAPHOR










81










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86










82


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86


EGYPT AS METAPHOR





BILINGUAL RESPONSE






83














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86














84


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86


EGYPT AS METAPHOR









85





86





86


egypt as metaphor...two egypt as metaphor visual bilingualism in the monumental tombs of ancient...

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