Antinoe. Mummies, textiles, ceramics and other antiques.
Somogy| N° d'inventaire | 36269 |
| Format | 20 x 27 |
| Détails | 600 p., color illustrations, publisher's hardcover. |
| Publication | Paris, 2013 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | |
Since its rediscovery at the very end of the 16th century and following the momentum initiated by the members of the Egyptian expedition, Antinoé, a prestigious site in Middle Egypt, has been explored by various excavators, almost without interruption from 1895 to the present day. Despite inevitable clandestine excavations, this place has been relatively preserved during the modern period. The collection of works and mummies studied in this work comes from the necropolises of the ancient city of Antinoé and represents a corpus of more than five thousand objects. This archaeological material, which arrived in France at the beginning of the 20th century, was distributed by the French State to various museums and universities across the national territory, and more widely in Europe, or subsequently deposited by the Louvre Museum. This previously unseen collection, rediscovered thanks to the inventory of the Louvre's deposits and State consignments, covers the Roman, Byzantine, and early Islamic periods. It perfectly illustrates the remarkable diversity of objects found on the site: rich clothing with varied decorations and shimmering colors admirably preserved, which still adorn several of the mummies studied, sometimes also covered in gilding, funerary masks painted with the effigy of the deceased, portraits of the deceased and other pieces, from their tombs, which accompanied them in the afterlife. This work offers the most exhaustive vision possible of this collection, which is ultimately relatively little known from a strictly archaeological and anthropological point of view. It also allows us to clarify the history of the arrival of the excavation products in France and the methods of their distribution. Several scientific investigations were carried out by the Louvre as part of this study, in order to improve our knowledge of the population and ancient culture of Antinoe. The historical and archival approaches, supplemented by numerous summary documents, are intended to provide readers, particularly researchers, with benchmarks and tools resulting from this research. Initiated by a review of inventory and archive collections, and followed by a scientific study of the works, this work lasted more than fifteen years. These precious sources of information allow us to revisit Late Antiquity, a period of transition between a pagan world and a world that had become Christian.
Since its rediscovery at the very end of the 16th century and following the momentum initiated by the members of the Egyptian expedition, Antinoé, a prestigious site in Middle Egypt, has been explored by various excavators, almost without interruption from 1895 to the present day. Despite inevitable clandestine excavations, this place has been relatively preserved during the modern period. The collection of works and mummies studied in this work comes from the necropolises of the ancient city of Antinoé and represents a corpus of more than five thousand objects. This archaeological material, which arrived in France at the beginning of the 20th century, was distributed by the French State to various museums and universities across the national territory, and more widely in Europe, or subsequently deposited by the Louvre Museum. This previously unseen collection, rediscovered thanks to the inventory of the Louvre's deposits and State consignments, covers the Roman, Byzantine, and early Islamic periods. It perfectly illustrates the remarkable diversity of objects found on the site: rich clothing with varied decorations and shimmering colors admirably preserved, which still adorn several of the mummies studied, sometimes also covered in gilding, funerary masks painted with the effigy of the deceased, portraits of the deceased and other pieces, from their tombs, which accompanied them in the afterlife. This work offers the most exhaustive vision possible of this collection, which is ultimately relatively little known from a strictly archaeological and anthropological point of view. It also allows us to clarify the history of the arrival of the excavation products in France and the methods of their distribution. Several scientific investigations were carried out by the Louvre as part of this study, in order to improve our knowledge of the population and ancient culture of Antinoe. The historical and archival approaches, supplemented by numerous summary documents, are intended to provide readers, particularly researchers, with benchmarks and tools resulting from this research. Initiated by a review of inventory and archive collections, and followed by a scientific study of the works, this work lasted more than fifteen years. These precious sources of information allow us to revisit Late Antiquity, a period of transition between a pagan world and a world that had become Christian.