Grieken in Egypte: Het Nijlmozaïek van Palestrina

The conquest of Egypt by Alexander and the ensuing Ptolemaic rule resulted in a merging of Egyptian and Greek culture. A unique picture of this mixed culture is offered by the Nile Mosaic of Palestrina (near Rome, late 2nd century BC). The mosaic depicts in a bird’s eye view the yearly Nile flood from its supposed origin in the Sudan up until the Delta. This picture represents a great variety of aspects of Egyptian life in the Ptolemaic period. There are the exotic fauna and flora of the Sudan, the different elements of the Egyptian and Greek populations occupied in the ceremonies and the festivities of the inundation period, their houses, sanctuaries, etc. Essentially the mosaic is an eulogy on the power of Isis who bestowed fortune and affluence onto her country. This explains the unexpectedpresence of the mosaic in the town of Palestrina because her tutelary diety Fortuna was, through Tyche, assimilated with Isis. The great variety and the accurate way in which all this is represented betrays the influence of the encyclopedic natural-historical studies cultivated in the Mouseion and the Library at Alexandria