Monumental Tombs of Ancient Alexandria
The Theater of the Dead

Spanning the life of this ancient city almost from its inception in 331 BCE through its transformation into a Christian metropolis, Alexandria's monumental tombs provide the single richest source of information about the ancient city. They attest both to the diversity and the cohesion of the community, its population's wealth and love of luxury, its sense of theatricality and pomp, and its cosmopolitan attitude. Neither Greek, nor Macedonian nor Egyptian, the monumental tombs from their inception demonstrate a specifically Alexandrian response to the ceremony of death that draws upon all three cultures but answers to none. Over the more than 500 years covered in this volume, Alexandria's monumental tombs confirm the changing ethos of the city's populace, as the tombs provide the stage on which both the city's continuity and its shifting concerns are played out. They afford a visual testament to the city's art and to its social history.

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'… [this] book not only forestalls a loss of knowledge but also introduces the material to a wide scholarly audience for the first time … Venit's work is an important contribution that should be read by anyone interested in the multicultural dynamics of the Hellenistic and Roman Mediterranean. Her book is a model for those who wish to push the traditional catalogue beyond its rather stale classificatory format and into service as the basis for a dynamic understanding of ancient lives.' Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians

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Product details

• Date Published: August 2002
• format: Hardback
• isbn: 9780521806596
• length: 284 pages

• dimensions: 284 x 224 x 28 mm
• weight: 1.315kg
• contains: 159 b/w illus.
• availability: Unavailable - out of print June 2005