EAN: 9783447114257

THE EGYPTIAN PRIESTS OF THE GRAECO-ROMAN PERIOD...

Throughout Egyptian history  high-ranking Egyptian priests were the scholars responsible for
the creation of the very material that constituted the core of Egyptian intellectual culture.
During the first millennium BCE  and particularly in the Graeco-Roman period (late fourth
century BCE-fourth century CE)  they were the social group in charge of mediating and
negotiating the terms of the relationship between traditional Egyptian culture and the new
foreign rulers of the country. As such  they are fundamental figures for our understanding of
the greater Mediterranean and Near Eastern world of the time. Marina Escolano-Poveda offers for
the first time a detailed analysis of the most relevant Egyptian priestly characters from
Egyptian and Graeco-Roman literary and paraliterary sources. The examination of these sources
contrasts the self-presentation of Egyptian priests in texts created and circulated within the
temple environment with images presented by outside sources  providing a solid base to analyze
how these figures were seen in their historical milieu. In the second part of the book  the
results of the previous analysis are contrasted with a series of widely-used models employed to
understand the historical and intellectual context of Egyptian religion and the Egyptian
priesthood in the Graeco-Roman period  questioning the usefulness and applicability of such
models. Escolano-Poveda proposes new ways of understanding the role of the Egyptian priests in
this context as fundamental actors in the development of the philosophical  scientific  and
literary culture of the Hellenistic  Roman  and Late Antique worlds.

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