Lens: Reexamining The Nile Mosaic

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Introduction As the earliest and most comprehensive Roman depiction of a "Nilotic landscape," the Nile Mosaic of Palestrina does not merely function as an expansive view of the Nile River. Second century B.C. artwork found on the floor of a public grotto-nymphaeum in the Temple of Fortuna at Palestrina, a town east of Ancient Rome, encapsulates endless genre-esque scenes of labeled figures, buildings, and the animal kingdom meandering through the Nile into the Mediterranean Sea. This birds-eye portrayal of landscape (and seascape) visibly renders every object as a resource, creating a conception of spatial reality in which geography and language are made violent in the erasure of Egypt and neighboring kingdoms such as Nubia and Aethiopia. The …show more content…

The mosaic's portrayal of exotic lands, indigenous peoples, and fantastical creatures not only reinforces Roman notions of conquest and authority but also perpetuates stereotypes and misconceptions about Egypt, Nubia, and Aethiopia. Historically, Western colonial powers often focus their archaeological and scholarly efforts on Egypt due to its perceived cultural superiority through the material record. This colonial legacy has influenced the prioritization of Egyptian studies in academia and public discourse, overshadowing Nubia and Aethiopia. But it is also crucial to note the exportation and exploitation of Egyptian culture outside of North Africa by the West as also demonstrated in the exotification and the specimen-logic treatment of labeling animals and removing the accurate context of land, resources, and plants in the Nile Mosaic. Egypt is depicted as “civilized” and habitable because of its association with empire, in contrast with that of Nubia in the upper register, physically farther from the viewer. This implicit visual mapping of territory concerning the “Western” viewer can be violent in the misrepresentational attitude suggesting a hierarchy based on proximity to the West. The lands beyond Egypt are depicted as filled with animal life (resources) to be hunted by the “primitive” population and literally mystical juxtaposed with “civilization” captured below. Ultimately, the Nile Mosaic presents an opportunity to reevaluate depictions of “the other” within the ancient Mediterranean, examining through a lens aware of mapping, cataloging, and representation that are crucial to decolonizing previous interpretations that were oversaturated by

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