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Worshipping the Colossus
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Chapter 2 begins with a discussion of Egypt as a destination for sacred tourism and as a repository of ancient culture, epitomized by the colossus, which functioned as a place of cultural memory. Imperial authors viewed Egypt as a place where Greek myth came to life. Visitors were inspired either by a kind of spiritual touristic impulse—the desire to witness the sacred (theoria)—or by an intellectual tourism and yearning to experience what they had already read or heard about. The inscriptions document these expressions of religious and intellectual wonder, crystallized at the moment of hearing Memnon’s voice. Whether visitors came as worshippers or tourists, in their minds the monument functioned as a material link to the past that miraculously came alive every morning at dawn. The colossus could elicit two distinct reactions—spiritual or intellectual—yet both fit within the framework of a fascination with the mythical past.
Title: Worshipping the Colossus
Description:
Chapter 2 begins with a discussion of Egypt as a destination for sacred tourism and as a repository of ancient culture, epitomized by the colossus, which functioned as a place of cultural memory.
Imperial authors viewed Egypt as a place where Greek myth came to life.
Visitors were inspired either by a kind of spiritual touristic impulse—the desire to witness the sacred (theoria)—or by an intellectual tourism and yearning to experience what they had already read or heard about.
The inscriptions document these expressions of religious and intellectual wonder, crystallized at the moment of hearing Memnon’s voice.
Whether visitors came as worshippers or tourists, in their minds the monument functioned as a material link to the past that miraculously came alive every morning at dawn.
The colossus could elicit two distinct reactions—spiritual or intellectual—yet both fit within the framework of a fascination with the mythical past.
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