New Directions in Isiac Studies

This presentation reviews recent developments in the study of Greek hymns to Egyptian gods, more than a dozen of which survive on papyrus and stone. Particularly important is a shift from earlier debates over origin and identity to a more nuanced analysis of the cross-cultural dialogues and networks of circulation in which the hymns emerged, and the significance of the hymns in their social and ritual contexts.

Egypt in Classical literature uncannily resembles and yet shockingly diverges from the Greco-Roman world. From the Hellenist perspective, and most recently, Moyer (2013) and Vasunia (2001) have addressed questions of culture, identity, and agency in the interactions of Greeks and Egyptians. Likewise, critics have illustrated Greek and Latin authors’ adaptation of Egypt to the expanding self-identity of Rome (Versluys 2015; Leemreize 2014; Manolaraki 2013), and highlighted the Isiac gods as catalysts to this process (Nagel 2017; Rolle 2017).

We begin this paper by surveying new work on Isiac material culture, including studies of gems (Veymiers 2009), lamps (Podvin 2011), landscapes (Barrett 2017), and Egyptian imports (Swetnam-Burland 2015). We then explore new directions by considering the application of the ‘art and text’ methodology pioneered by J. Elsner, M. Squire and V. Platt to Isiac material (Elsner 2007; Squire 2009; Platt 2011).

During the Hellenistic and Imperial periods, from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, individuals from very different backgrounds defined themselves as “Isiacs” and, by doing so, expressed their religious adhesion to the Greco-Roman cults of Isis.

This paper traces the development of scholarship devoted to Isis for more than a century, culminating in the present-day collective effort among numerous scholars to recognize the complex and varied nature of this goddess. The 1884 publication of the thesis of Georges Lafaye, Histoire du culte des divinités d’Alexandrie hors de l’Égypte, gave birth to a new field of research, one devoted to the interaction between Egyptian civilization and the classical Greco-Roman world, particularly the diffusion of the worship of several divine figures (Isis, Sarapis, Harpocrates, and Anubis).