RT Conference Proceedings
T1 Egyptian Fauna in Nilotic Scenes
A1 Voltan, Eleonora
K1 Arqueología
AB The land of Egypt was fought over and incorporated into Rome's mentality in a similar way to the conquest ofGreece: the conquered subjugated the conqueror and, through its culture, bound him to itself in a way that wasas subtle as it was indissoluble. In fact, Roman swords and war strategies were disarmed by the knowledgeand exotic fascination of the Nilotic land, to the extent that the ferment created by the influence and directconfrontation with this millenary civilisation led to the creation of a peculiar material culture inspired by Egyptthrough the Roman perspective. An effective proof of this is the elaboration of nilotic landscapes which, fromthe first testimonies of the late Republican period, became popular in the Imperial period, becoming a realfashion driven by the more intense contacts between Egypt and the Empire, especially with the annexation ofthe former to the Roman territories. Within the repertoire of Roman Nilotic representations, there are somerecurrent iconographic elements that "mark" this figurative typology. In addition to the flora, the representationof the fauna living on the banks of the Egyptian river plays a fundamental role in the iconography of the RomanNilotic. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to the different types of animals that animate these images,such as crocodiles, hippopotamuses, ibises, etc., their manner of representation, especially between the 1st and2nd centuries AD, as well as their representation as an abstraction of exoticism, rarity and distance associatedwith the Roman province of Egypt. Finally, some of the main compositional schemes relating to theencounter/confrontation between the Nilotic fauna and the pygmies, central characters in the Nilotic scenario,will be briefly considered.
YR 2023
FD 2023-07
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10630/27397
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10630/27397
LA eng
NO Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech
DS RIUMA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Málaga
RD 19 ene 2026