Aspetti dell'ideologia funeraria nell'Egitto cristiano: le stele copte /
- Autores: Mario Cappozzo
- Directores de la Tesis: Josep Cervelló Autuori (dir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona ( España ) en 2017
- Idioma: español
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Loretta Del Francia Barocas (presid.), Isabel Rodà de Llanza (secret.), Alberto J. Quevedo Álvarez (voc.)
- Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Culturas en Contacto en el Mediterráneo por la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona
- Materias:
- Enlaces
- Resumen
This work concerns Egyptian Coptic funeral stelae and arose from the frequently observed need in the field of Coptic art studies for the huge amount of material to be organised and structured for archaeological provenance. Almost all of it is now found out of context, making it difficult to frame chronologically, as well as it being impossible to trace the provenance. Coptic stelae are, in fact, among the archaeological material which has been penalised by modern archaeological research methods, which, ever since the end of the 19th century, have been mainly concentrated on material from the Pharaonic age, omitting almost all evidence of the Coptic period, considered to be less valuable artistically, and, therefore, also historically.
The production of stelae in Egypt involved epitaphs in both Greek and Coptic. The principal objective of this investigation was a study of the figurative phenomena, until now rather neglected. In fact, on many stelae there are images of humans, animals, plants, symbols, architectural motifs and various objects which, taken together, have never been systematically studied. The data coming from the study of the representations have been painstakingly placed in relation to the epigraphy in such a way as to effect a complete valuation of the pieces. Finally, the most ambitious attempt has been that of bringing together such a dispersed and decontextualized production into a coherent chronological framework and outlining some macro-areas of attribution.
The development of the arguments in this study has been organised into three distinct chapters, structured by paragraph. The first chapter opens with a paragraph dedicated to the history of these studies. The following paragraph deals with the general characteristics of production: materials used, time arc for attestation, spatial diffusion, nature of the documentation, iconographic apparatus, languages used and principal characteristics of the funerary epitaphs, particularity of stelae documented in Egypt. There follows a paragraph centred upon data of a purely archaeological nature. In this way, funerary stelae are dealt with by reference to their burial context, that is seen as an element of the funerary apparatus provided for the burial. The next paragraph is also centred on archaeological themes and deals singly with stelae found in situ and with stelae reused in a secondary context. The first part of this chapter concludes with a description of the principal collections of Coptic stelae, paying particular attention to the stelae conserved in the Italian collections, for which an overview has never been provided.
The first chapter follows with an analysis of all the stela which, dated before the IVth century, we can consider to be the antecedents of the Coptic stelae: the ‘Palmyrene’ stelae from Coptos, the Alexandrian stelae, and the stelae from Therenouthis/Kom Abu Billou, Oxyrhynchus/el-Bahnasa, Antinoe/Sheikh Abada and Akoris. The chapter closes with a paragraph dedicated to the new funerary ideas introduced into Egypt by Christianity, but underlining those factors of continuity with tradition which will also remain visible in the production of Coptic stelae. In this case the analysis pays particular attention to the archaeological documentation.
The second chapter is devoted to the more properly archaeological aspects and recounts the history of archaeological activity at the different sites where stelae have been found and these findings of stelae at the different sites have been organised in geographical order, from the Delta as far as Aswan.
The third chapter deals with an analysis of the representations which appear on the stelae. This is a subject which has never before been dealt with in detail for all the documentation of Coptic stelae. The numerous stelae without any geographic indication of provenance, but characterised by a rich and variegated iconography, have also been dealt with here – and hence their exclusion in the preceding chapter. The figurative elements have been divided into different paragraphs grouped together by typology: architectural elements, human figures, symbols, birds, mammals, aquatic and marine elements, plant elements, other subjects.
The third chapter contains the conclusions, which are collected together in three main paragraphs. In the first paragraph, the stelae are interpreted within the historic frame. In the second paragraph the stelae are interpreted on the basis an integrated analysis of epitaphs and images. In the last paragraph the principal macro-areas into which it is possible to divide Coptic documentation are identified. These areas are in the Delta, in Sinai, in Fayum, and in Middle and Upper Egypt. The principal characteristics of all of them are highlighted and historical motivations are proposed.
