Book competition

This week’s book competition prize is Beyond the Nile: Egypt and the Classical World edited by Jeffrey Spier, Timothy Potts, and Sara E. Cole
(Getty Publications). Click here to enter.

From about 2000 BCE onward, Egypt served as an important nexus for cultural exchange in the eastern Mediterranean, importing and exporting not just wares but also new artistic techniques and styles. Egyptian, Greek, and Roman craftsmen imitated one another’s work, creating cultural and artistic hybrids that transcended a single tradition. Yet in spite of the remarkable artistic production that resulted from these interchanges, the complex vicissitudes of exchange between Egypt and the Classical world over the course of nearly 2500 years have not been comprehensively explored in a major exhibition or publication in the United States. It is precisely this aspect of Egypt’s history, however, that Beyond the Nile uncovers.

Renowned scholars have come together to provide compelling analyses of the constantly evolving dynamics of cultural exchange, first between Egyptians and Greeks—during the Bronze Age, then the Archaic and Classical periods of Greece, and finally Ptolemaic Egypt—and later, when Egypt passed to Roman rule with the defeat of Cleopatra. With gorgeous photographs of more than two hundred rare objects, including frescoes, statues, obelisks, jewelry, papyri, pottery, and coins, this volume offers an essential and interdisciplinary approach to the rich world of artistic cross-pollination during antiquity.

Answer the following question, by 12 pm on 15 June, to win a copy of Beyond the Nile: Egypt and the Classical World edited by Jeffrey Spier, Timothy Potts, and Sara E. Cole (Getty Publications).

Q: Which painter and photographer collaborated to make the experimental film Manhatta (1921)? 

Answer: Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand