Nilotic Aegyptiaca And Water Features In The Roman Garden

Within recent decades, scholarship on Roman art and décor has evolved to look at objects and images contextually rather than individually, and this concept has been extended to looking especially at art in the Roman home or domus. Roman gardens in private homes might be seen to have decorations evoking places from the far reaches of the Roman empire, and one common place might be Egypt and the Nile River. This thesis aims to examine the context and significance of these Egyptian and Nile inspired objects and images—called Nilotic Aegyptiaca by scholars—in Roman gardens throughout the empire but especially in Pompeii. Through analyzing the historical context of Egypt and the Nile in Roman thought as well as the purpose and use of Nilotic art and décor in a garden space alongside other garden features like water features, I argue that Nilotic Aegyptiaca would work in conjunction with water features in the garden to bring the faraway Nile into a Roman space, imposing Roman cultural expectations and meanings onto it.