Abstract
Art historical analysis of the Greco-Roman tombs in Alexandria suggests that the tomb owners’ synthesized iconographic elements belonging to Greek, Roman, and Egyptian artistic styles. Classical decorative motifs and figures reflect the tombs owners’ understanding and acceptance of Greco-Roman practices. Tomb owners incorporate Egyptian figures into the funerary spaces, yet the compositions lack the homogeneity and religious connotations present in previous Egyptian painted programs. The seeming defiance of representation indicates that the tomb owners were not interested in correctly rendering Egyptian ideology; rather, the tomb owners were interested in painting Egyptian figures for the sake of each figure’s supernatural and protective meaning. Synthesis of the Classical and Egyptian funerary elements demonstrate the tomb owners’ decorative predilections and desires to communicate one final message concerning beauty, political allegiance, and religious identity.Copyright for articles published in this journal is retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Journal under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (linked here). By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are available for wide dissemination at no cost to readers, with proper attribution (acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal), in educational and other non-commercial settings. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process.
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