ANNUAL INTERDISCIPLINARY SCHOOL OF ANCIENT GREEK, EGYPTOLOGY AND ORIENTAL LANGUAGES. DAY 6

 

In the first part of the day, Dr. Giorgia Cafici (Centro Italiano di Egittologia "G. Botti") presented the paper "The functions of ancient Egyptian sculpture. Statues of gods and people in temples and tombs - original cosmogonic meanings and syncretic hermeneutics". She presented the functions and typologies of Egyptian statues and their role in the public and private life of the Egyptians. These had a pragmatic purpose, not being considered to be creations or representations made by man, but the bodies of the gods. The statues of kings and elites had their purpose in the afterlife, to ensure life after death. They needed offerings to keep their energy alive in the afterlife, and could be turned on or off (for example, a statue could be "killed" by cutting off its nose or mouth, which could no longer allow the human breath in it). The seminar entitled "Egyptian elites as Romans citizens. Private portraits from the Ptolemaic period", which presents a gallery of portraits compared in terms of representation with those from the old period, will be resumed tomorrow, September 7.

In the second part of the day, Dr. Andreea Stefan (National Museum of History of Romania) presented the Stoic vision of the cosmos, as illustrated in the Diatribes of Epictetus, III, 24, the Greek text being read and translated with the classicist student Cristian Simon (The University of Bucharest). Thus, the Stoic universe is governed by the active, masculine, rational element, which is also the nature of things (physis) and governed by its laws. The universe has neither a beginning nor an end, being in a continuous transformation. The whole humanity is a single city, a large family (oikos), whose citizens, people, maintain family relationships dictated by Stoic ethics.

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