The Beautiful Burial in Roman Egypt: Art, Identity, and Funerary Religion

by Christina Riggs

This important new study looks at the intersection of Greek and Egyptian art forms in the funerary sphere of Roman Egypt. A discussion of artistic change, cultural identity, and religious belief foregrounds the detailed analysis of more than 150 objects and tombs, many of which are presented here for the first time. In addition to the information it provides about individual works of art, supported by catalogue entries, the study explores fundamental questions such as how artists combine the iconographies and representational forms of different visual traditions, and why two distinct visual traditions were employed in Roman Egypt.

Genres: Egypt

360 pages, Hardcover

First published February 3, 2006

About the author

Christina Riggs is Professor of the History of Visual Culture at Durham University in the northeast of England. Her most recent book is Treasured: How Tutankhamun Shaped a Century (2021), an 'utterly original' account which Kirkus Reviews has described as 'an imaginative weaving of the personal and political into a fresh narrative of an archaeological icon.'

Riggs is a former museum curator who studied art history, archaeology, and Egyptology in her native United States before moving to the UK to complete her doctorate at Oxford University. She has held a number of prestigious fellowships, and her writing has appeared in Apollo, History Today, the Times Literary Supplement, the London Review of Books, and Italia magazine, the last reflecting her love of all things Italian. She lives between the north of England and the north of Italy – and wherever she is, she writes first thing in the morning, with a strong cup of coffee.