Transfigurations of Hellenism : : aspects of late antique art in Egypt, A.D. 250-700 / / by Laszlo Torok.

• Superior document: Probleme der Agyptologie, 23
• Author: Torok, Laszlo, 1941-
• Year of Publication: 2005
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Probleme der Agyptologie ; 23. Bd.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (536 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

This richly illustrated book presents a history of Egyptian late antique-early Byzantine (Coptic) art in its international stylistic, social and intellectual context.

Table of Contents

List of figures; List of plates; Acknowledgements; A note on the terminology; I. Introduction: A visit to the Coptic Museum in Old Cairo; II. Images of late antique Egypt in twentieth-century art history; 1. The Ahnas pitfall; 2. The myth of anti-Hellenism; 3. Pharaonic revival: myth and reality; 4. The myth of Volkskunst and the contribution of forgery to Coptic art history; 5. From Ernst Kitzinger's ""Notes on Early Coptic Sculpture"" to Hjalmar Torp's ""Leda Christiana""; III. On methods; 1. Function, chronology, and style; 2. Chronology and the stratification of artistic production

3. The limits of the investigationIV. History, society, and art in late Roman and early Byzantine Egypt; 1. Images of social identity; 2. History and society in late antique and early Byzantine Egypt; V. Continuity and change 1: The survival of forms of Alexandrian Hellenistic architecture; VI. Continuity and change 2: New patterns of monumentality; 1. The imperial cult sanctuary of the Tetrarchs in the Amûn temple of Luxor; 2. Modernity and archaizing in Shenoute's ""White Monastery"" at Sohag; 3. The episcopal complex at Hermopolis Magna; 4. Uses of the past

VII. Images for mortuary display1. Sculptors, workshops and modes of representation; VIII. Images of the good life: display and style; 1. Iconography of wealth; 2. Styles of wealth; 3. Ornaments for the patrician house and the church; 4. Images and ideals. Creating an Egyptian style; 5. Decline or transformation? Art for the less wealthy; IX. The Christianization of art in late antique Egypt; 1. Classical tradition: from pagan to Christian; 2. Ecclesiastical display and delight in the good things; Epilogue: Perennial Hellenism?; Abbreviations; Index of names; Index of places and monuments

Museum indexIllustrations