Egypt and Empire

Download or read book Egypt and Empire written by Elisabeth R. O'Connell and published by . This book was released on 2022-04-19 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across Eurasia and North Africa in the First Millennium AD, empires rose and fell, each adopting a universalizing faith which distinguished it broadly from its neighbours. In Egypt, our sources are particularly rich, owing to the landâe(tm)s arid climate and the unparalleled survival not only of stone, ceramic and metalwork, but also of organic material such as textiles, wood and manuscripts found on papyrus, parchment and paper. This volume brings together over a dozen of the worldâe(tm)s leading specialists to explore the dialectical interplay between empire and religious identity through a series of case studies from Egypt. Evidence from Egypt suggests that it was precisely in the context of empire that âe~religious identityâe(tm) emerged as a distinctive marker. Using the unrivalled abundance and variety of surviving material culture, this volume explores the formation, renegotiation and reconstitution of religious identities from the Roman period forward. Whereas Egyptâe(tm)s âe~pharaonicâe(tm) millennia (c. 3000-30 BC) have been studied as a coherent whole, later eras are often studied as fragments. Egypt and Empire offers a different approach by covering together periods that are usually treated separately in different academic disciplines.