Transfigurations Of Hellenism ─ Aspects Of Late Antique Art In Egypt, Ad 250-700

Inspired by recent discoveries and exhibitions, Torok examines Egyptian Coptic culture in terms of its artistic production. In doing so he seeks to correct misperceptions about anti-Hellenism and the pharonic revival, the myth of Volkskunst and the contribution of forgery to Coptic art history. He begins by examining society and at in late Roman and early Byzantine Egypt, including its images of social identity and the role of conquest, and traces the reasons for the survival of Alexandrian Hellenistic architecture and new patterns of monumentality. He seeks evidence in mortuary display and in images of the good life, as well as in the turn to Christianity in late antique Egypt. He provides resources such as lists of monuments and museums, as well as hundreds of illustrations of artifacts from across the time period. Annotation c2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Laszlo Torok, Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1992), is Research Professor at the Archaeological Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He has published extensively on ancient Nubian history and Hellenistic and late antique art in Egypt, including The Kingdom of Kush (Leiden, 1997), The Image of the Ordered World in Ancient Nubian Art (Leiden, 2002).