Aegyptiaca on the Island of Crete in Their Chronological Context: A Critical Review

This work, consisting of two separate volumes, is an updated and expanded version of the author’s 1991 dissertation and aims to cover all known Egyptian imports found on the island of Crete. The first volume concentrates on various groups of imports including stone vases, faience and glass vessels, pottery, scarabs, beads and figurative art not only in terms of their temporal and spatial distribution on Crete but also in terms of their impact on Minoan material culture. The chapters are completed by a discussion of the object’s development within Egypt. Absolute dates for the Egyptian imports are given and discussed as well as an up-to-date account of current research and knowledge, thus making the first volume an extremely valuable handbook for scholars not so familiar with Egyptian material culture. In addition to objects, iconographical images which entered the Minoan culture, such as that of the hippopotamus-goddess Taweret which was converted into the “Minoan genius”, are also discussed, as are other images like the representation of the cat, the crocodile or the ape. Numerous distribution maps are included in the first volume, as is an extensive bibliography. The second volume comprises the catalogue of Egyptian and Egyptianized artefacts arranged according to the site where the object was found. The state of research for each site is discussed in brief, followed by the respective catalogue entries including a description, measurements, dating and bibliography. Concordances cross-referenced to museum inventory numbers and previous catalogues, as well as drawings for each piece, complete the second volume of this work.