Egypt beyond Representation develops and applies a new approach to study
Aegyptiaca Romana from a bottom-up, Roman perspective. Current
approaches to these objects are often still plagued by top-down
projections of modern definitions and understandings of Egypt and
Egyptian material culture onto the Roman world. This book instead argues
that these artefacts should be studied in their own right, without
reducing them from the onset to fixed (Egyptian) meanings. Starting from
a novel focus on the materials and materiality of a selection of stone
Aegyptiaca from Rome, and by combining archaeological and archaeometric
perspectives, this study shows that, while Egyptianness may have been
among Roman associations, these objects were able to do much more than
merely representing notions of Egypt.