«Lost in Translation»: the Hellenization of the Egyptian Tradition

Abstract

Starting with the guidelines that can help us to understand the framework of demotic culture during Greco-Roman Period this chapter is focused on the Egyptian background behind the multicultural tradition that rose in the Serapeum of Alexandria. Despite of its Hellenistic atmosphere, the Alexandrian Serapeum was the cradle of a new multicultural tradition: within its sacred precinct Greco-Egyptian deities received cult in the temple of Sarapis, while a multicultural community of scholars was actively engaged in the creation of a vast repertoire of texts and iconography. With its roots grounded on the Egyptian wisdom, such tradition was expressed in Greek or demotic philosophical discourses and was in use by a wide multicultural population, reaching so disparate territories as the Egyptian oasis of the Western Desert or the shores of the Atlantic.