Isis in a Global Empire
Greek Identity through Egyptian Religion in Roman Greece

It introduces a religious dimension to the study of ethnic identity and globalization in the provinces of the Roman Empire.

Lindsey A. Mazurek (Author)

9781316517017, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 February 2022

292 pages
25.9 x 18.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.76 kg

In Isis in a Global Empire, Lindsey Mazurek explores the growing popularity of Egyptian gods and its impact on Greek identity in the Roman Empire. Bringing together archaeological, art historical, and textual evidence, she demonstrates how the diverse devotees of gods such as Isis and Sarapis considered Greek ethnicity in ways that differed significantly from those of the Greek male elites whose opinions have long shaped our understanding of Roman Greece. These ideas were expressed in various ways - sculptures of Egyptian deities rendered in a Greek style, hymns to Isis that grounded her in Greek geography and mythology, funerary portraits that depicted devotees dressed as Isis, and sanctuaries that used natural and artistic features to evoke stereotypes of the Nile. Mazurek's volume offers a fresh, material history of ancient globalization, one that highlights the role that religion played in the self-identification of provincial Romans and their place in the Mediterranean world.

1. Egyptian religion and the problem of Greekness
2. Building groupness: Isis' devotees and their communities
3. Deterritorializing theology? Bringing the Egyptian gods to Greece
4. Self-understanding: Visualizing Isis in stone
5. Self-fashioning: Dressing devotees of Isis in Athenian portraits
6. Self-location: Isiac sanctuaries and Nilotic fictions
7. Conclusion: Graecia Capta, Aegypta Capta.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], Ancient Egyptian religion & mythology [HRKP1], Classical Greek & Roman archaeology [HDDK], Egyptian archaeology / Egyptology [HDDG], Archaeology [HD], History of art: ancient & classical art,BCE to c 500 CE [ACG]