This book examines the appetite for Egyptian and Egyptian-looking artwork in Italy during the century following Rome's annexation of Aegyptus as a province. In the early imperial period, Roman interest in Egyptian culture was widespread, as evidenced by works ranging from the monumental obelisks, brought to the capital over the Mediterranean Sea by the emperors, to locally made emulations of Egyptian artifacts found in private homes and in temples to Egyptian gods. Although the foreign appearance of these artworks was central to their appeal, this book situates them within their social, political, and artistic contexts in Roman Italy. Swetnam-Burland focuses on what these works meant to their owners and their viewers in their new settings, by exploring evidence for the artists who produced them and by examining their relationship to the contemporary literature that informed Roman perceptions of Egyptian history, customs, and myths.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

David Childress, popular author and star of the History Channel’s show Ancient Aliens, brings us a stunning tale of archeological investigation on a megalithic scale. Childress looks into the enigma of obelisks and their purpose. Egyptologists tell us that obelisks are granite towers that symbolize a ray of the sun—a megalithic symbol of the Sun God Ra, later to be called Aton. Some obelisks weigh over 500 tons and are massive blocks of polished granite that would be extremely difficult to quarry and erect even with modern equipment. Why did ancient civilizations in Egypt, Ethiopia and elsewhere undertake the massive enterprise it would have been to erect a single obelisk, much less dozens of them? Were obelisks more than simple monuments? Were they energy towers that could receive or transmit energy? Childress takes us on an amazing journey through the history of the obelisk and its probable purpose as an energy tower. With discussions on Tesla’s wireless power, and the use of obelisks as gigantic acupuncture needles for earth, Childress shows us what the ancients were trying to achieve with their mysterious obelisks. Chapters include: Megaliths Around the World and their Purpose; Mysteries of the Unfinished Obelisk; The Crystal Towers of Egypt; The Obelisks of Ethiopia; Obelisks in Europe and Asia; Mysterious Obelisks in the Americas; The Terrible Crystal Towers of Atlantis; Tesla’s Wireless Power Distribution System; Obelisks on the Moon; more. 8-page color section.

Scholarly, mischievous, and driven by curiosity about the unknown, William John Bankes (1786-1855) was a complex and talented member of England's landed gentry. A friend of Lord Byron, he achieved recognition on several fronts- as a daring explorer of ancient lands, notably Egypt and Petra; as a brilliant art collector, illustrator, and remodeler of Kingston Lacy, his family estate in Dorset; and, unfortunately, as the focus of a homophobic sex scandal, which forced him to leave his homeland. Bankes made key discoveries as he explored the archeology and history of Egypt and Syria. He traveled deeper into Egypt and Nubia than any other European before him and prepared over 1,400 site plans and drawings of temples, many now lost to the sand or under the waters of the Nile. At the Abydos Temple he discovered the King List-a wall of cartouches listing Egyptian kings in chronological order-which was vital to the decoding of Egyptian hieroglyphs.a At Philae he uncovered a fallen obelisk, which he arranged to be transported back to England. And in modern-day Jordan he was the first European to make sketches and site plans of the olosto city of Petra. William's life was rich and full, if not always comfortable and secure. In an era when homosexuality was a capital offense, he was persecuted for being gay and threatened with imprisonment and execution. But his pioneering work on ancient temples now enriches the knowledge of modern Egyptologists, and his art collection and decorative talents can be enjoyed by those who visit his home-with the obelisk from Philae still raised on the south lawn. Enhanced by many of Bankes's drawings and paintings, this engaging story is full of vivid detail about the beginnings of Egyptology, Regency England, and a fascinating, multifaceted individual.

"A deluxe book produced at the point that Harroun and Bierstadt dissolved their business ... The Artotypes in this book are some of the finest produced by Bierstadt. The pictorial record of this engineering feat is remarkable in itself; casing and tilting the obelisk, loading it into the side of the ship by removing part of the hull, pulling it out on a special dock in the Hudson and then moving it by custom made rail from the river to the site next to the Metropolitan Museum. The illustrations show the hieroglyphics, now mostly lost due to New York's polluted air, bright and clear."--Hanson Collection catalog, p. 82

An interdisciplinary exploration of Roman cultural appropriation, offering new insights into the processes through which Rome made and remade itself.

"Sphinxes are legion in Egypt--what is so special about this one?... We shall take a stroll around the monument itself, scrutinizing its special features and analyzing the changes it experienced throughout its history. The evidence linked to the statue will enable us to trace its evolution... down to the worship it received in the first centuries of our own era, when Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans mingled together in devotion to this colossus, illustrious witness to a past that was already more than two millennia old."--from the IntroductionThe Great Sphinx of Giza is one of the few monuments from ancient Egypt familiar to nearly everyone. In a land where the colossal is part of the landscape, it still stands out, the largest known statue in Egypt. Originally constructed as the image of King Chephren, builder of the second of the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx later acquired new fame in the guise of the sun god Harmakhis. Major construction efforts in the New Kingdom and Roman Period transformed the monument and its environs into an impressive place of pilgrimage, visited until the end of pagan antiquity.Christiane Zivie-Coche, a distinguished Egyptologist, surveys the long history of the Great Sphinx and discusses its original appearance, its functions and religious significance, its relation to the many other Egyptian sphinxes, and the various discoveries connected with it. From votive objects deposited by the faithful and inscriptions that testify to details of worship, she reconstructs the cult of Harmakhis (in Egyptian, Har-em-akhet, or "Horus-in-the-horizon"), which arose around the monument in the second millennium. "We are faced," she writes, "with a religious phenomenon that is entirely original, though not unique: a theological reinterpretation turned an existing statue into the image of the god who had been invented on its basis."The coming of Christianity ended the Great Sphinx's religious role. The ever-present sand buried it, thus sparing it the fate that overtook the nearby pyramids, which were stripped of their stone by medieval builders. The monument remained untouched, covered by its desert blanket, until the first excavations. Zivie-Coche details the archaeological activity aimed at clearing the Sphinx and, later, at preserving it from the corrosive effects of a rising water table.

Nearly every empire worthy of the name--from ancient Rome to the United States--has sought an Egyptian obelisk to place in the center of a ceremonial space. Obelisks--giant standing stones, invented in Ancient Egypt as sacred objects--serve no practical purpose. This beautifully illustrated book traces the fate and many meanings of obelisks across nearly forty centuries--what they meant to the Egyptians, and how other cultures have borrowed, interpreted, understood, and misunderstood them through the years.

Provides description and analysis of Egyptian building practices.