Egypt and the Mediterranean world

UNESCO Courier, Sept, 1988 by Gaballa Aly Gaballa

The Greek astronomer, philosopher and mathematician, Thales of Miletus, is said to have brought back the 365-day solar calendar from Egypt at the end of the seventh century BC. The Athenian statesman Solon (c. 640-560 BC) visited Egypt at the time when, according to Herodotus, the Sixteenth-Dynasty king Amasis II promulgated a law under which each Egyptian was obliged to make an annual declaration of income and return it to the governor of the province. Any person guilty of illicit gains was condemned to death. Solon had an identical law adopted in Athens. Another Greek historian, Diodorus of Sicily, recounts that Lycurgus (legendary king of Sparta) drew inspiration from Egyptian legislation, as did Plato.

Egypt's influence on early Greek art is evident, too. The kouros figure of a young man, characteristic of archaic statuary, has an Egyptian air about it. The tall, slim youth stands with his left leg forward, his arms held straight by his sides and his hands clenched. This type of statue not only imitates the attitudes of Egyptian figures, but also abides by the traditional rules governing Egyptian art, in particular the "rule of proportion" that its creators had been applying for over 2,000 years. The human body was originally divided into 18 equal squares, and into 21 from the Saite period (seventh century BC), when the unit of measurement of length, the cubit, was modified. Diodorus of Sicily relates that in the sixth century BC Telekles and Theodorus, two famous Greek sculptors, drew on that tradition for a statue of Apollo by dividing the body into 21-1/4 squares.

Over the centuries, the Greeks became increasingly involved in the history of Egypt. In 332 BC, the country was conquered by Alexander the Great, and a Macedonian Dynasty was founded which governed the country for some three centuries. Egypt became part of the Hellenistic world encompassing the eastern basin of the Mediterranean. Alexandria, the new Egyptian capital founded by the Greeks, brought fresh prestige to Hellenism through its writers, geographers, historians, architects and astronomers.

When the Roman general Marcus Antonius, ally of Cleopatra VII, lost the battle of Actium in 31 BC, Egypt became a Roman province. As the granary of Rome it helped to supply the Roman army during its major conquests.

As regards religion, the cult of Isis and Osiris (Serapis, In its Ptolemaic form), and of their son Horus-Harpocrates, was widely adopted in the Graeco-Roman world. The legend of Osiris, based on belief in the afterlife of the soul in a better world, has strong popular appeal, since it promises salvation to all, a concept lacking in the official worship of the Greek and Roman divinities. To the Greeks, Isis was the incarnation of destiny, since she succeeded in freeing herself from the control of the gods and thereby acquired absolute power. The Isis cult in Rome competed with the Roman religion and emperorworship. Moreover, the Osirian triad foreshadowed the Christian trinity. Before the advent of Christianity, Isis-worship in Europe became as prevalent as the later cult of the Virgin Mary.