Shiro Burnette, NYU

“A Charged River: Tracing Roman Suppression of Nilotic Memory”

The sanctuary dedicated to Isis and Serapis in Rome’s Campus Martius was the largest and most prominent Egyptian cult in this urban setting. Channeling evidence from the marble slabs of the Forma Urbis Romae, numismatics, sculptures, and reliefs, the form of the sanctuary emerges as a multi- dimensional space of varying architectural styles in the Campus Martius. A man-made canal within the sanctuary reflects the juxtaposition between Roman and Egyptian topography and the resources employed to reimagine Nilotic space and power. Evidence invoking the activity of the Nile in sacred and domestic contexts at Pompeii further expands Roman expropriation of African topography. As Romans increasingly imagined the Nile in new contexts, they concurrently constructed a bridge and border between disparate landscapes.

Though Roman mosaics, paintings, and structures invoking the image of the Nile may have expanded the river’s reception, the lived memory of the Nile River Valley was increasingly suppressed via tools of craft and imperialism. This paper, thus, argues that Roman fabrications of Nilotic scenery suppressed the imbued spirit of the river and the surrounding environment. Despite Rome’s “capture” of Egypt, attempts at integration further delineate the dialectic between the two landscapes and their contained cultural practices. This study operates at the intersections of topography, landscape archaeology, and memory studies to highlight the artifice of Nilotic scenes in the Italic Peninsula and challenge the parameters of a culture’s mobiliary nature.