Cultural Similarities between Ancient Egypt and Byzantium

Bibliographic Data

ID19533282
AuthorsLloyd D Graham (0000-0003-4149-2120, corresponding author)
Year2022
Issue13
Pages149-179
Publication date2022-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTrabajos de Egiptología Papers on Ancient Egypt (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1695-4750 • E-ISSN: 1695-4750
PublisherUniversity of La Laguna (PUBLISHER • ES)
DOI10.25145/j.tde.2022.13.04
OpenAlexW4391370522
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited19

This paper is intended as a joint tribute to the scholarship of Egyptologist Erik Hornung and Byzantinist Cyril Mango, both of whom recently passed away. Byzantine traits with obvious parallels in ancient Egyptian culture abound in Cyril Mango’s introduction to The Oxford History of Byzantium, and yet –both there and elsewhere– one looks in vain for an overt acknowledgment that these two very different civilizations nevertheless shared a distinctive cluster of characteristics. Drawing on Hornung’s Idea Into Image as a starting point for Egyptological insights, this paper seeks to establish such a correspondence. Shared features of the two cultures include their self-belief, theocratic disposition, bureaucracy, longevity, feigned immutability, preoccupation with order, dynastic tendency, temporal focus, ritualism and artistic conventions, as well as aspects of their kingship paradigms, afterlife anxieties and relative periodisation. The observed similarities point to a nexus of specific principles, behaviours and outcomes – components which tend to co-occur as a group in complex human societies

Ancient history · Ancient Egypt and Archaeology · Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History

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