A Nilotic fresco from the House of the Ephebe in the ruins of Pompeii, showing banqueters. Photo: Supplied.
So you’re obsessed with the history of the Roman Empire and ancient Egypt, but how do you think the Romans felt about the Egyptians themselves?
Well, lucky for you, you’ll get the chance to find out when a world-leading expert and archaeologist comes to Canberra in February to present a free lecture that examines Rome’s obsession with Egypt.
The Australian Academy for the Humanities will welcome Professor Caitie Barrett from Cornell University to present the 2025 Trendall Lecture.
The free lecture is called Household archaeology & the domestication of empire — Egyptian landscapes at Pompeii.
Professor Barrett will draw on her extensive fieldwork in the ruins of Pompeii to analyse the everyday Romans’ understanding, and opinion, on Egypt and by extension, their own empire.
“To many Romans, Egypt was a distant land that conjured emotions of fear and wonder. Yet, possessing Egyptian and Egyptian-looking items known as ‘Aegyptiaca’ or art indicated a sense of status in one’s house,” Professor Barrett said.
“Among the most common forms of ‘Aegyptiaca’ were so-called Nilotic scenes: frescoes, mosaics, and other media depicting imagined Egyptian landscapes, often fantastical in nature.
“The largest surviving collection of these images comes from Pompeii in the first century CE. As representations of a distant land under Roman rule, these Pompeian images provide an opportunity to explore the ways in which Romans considered their empire, and its boundaries, within everyday life.”
Professor Caitie Barrett is an archaeologist from Cornell University. Photo: Supplied.
Professor Barrett investigates everyday life, religious experience and cross-cultural interactions in the ancient Mediterranean.
She is the co-director of the Casa della Regina Carolina Project at Pompeii, which involves the excavation and survey of a large house to investigate relationships between domestic material culture, social performance and historical change.
In addition to this current field project at Pompeii, she has excavated and surveyed at a range of Bronze Age through to early modern sites in Italy, Egypt, Greece and the United States.
She has also published books on interactions between Egypt and the Greco-Roman world.
The lecture will be held at the Australian National University in Canberra on 3 February at 5:15 pm and will be followed by a reception with refreshments.
It is free and open to the public, but registration is essential. To register, click here.
The Trendall Lecture is a free public event that presents new research from ancient history and is named in memory of classicist and art historian Professor AD Trendall.
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