This book is about monuments of Meroitic architecture, sculpture and
minor arts created under the influence of the Hellenistic and Hellenizing architecture, sculpture and minor arts of Ptolemaic and Roman
Egypt. Evidently, it does not pretend to be a history of Meroitic art.
“Traditional” or “Egyptianizing” style monuments will be discussed
insofar as they belong to the same cultural context as the Hellenizing monuments or if they also display Hellenizing features. My aim
is to show that the Nubian reception of Egyptian Hellenistic and Hellenizing art was inner-directed all the way through (this is why I put
“acculturation” between quotation marks in this book). This is not to
say, however, that my final aim is the identification of some perennial model of Meroitic cultural behaviour. I am not going to enter the
theoretical discussion about acculturation, either.2
I am more interested in the study of individual cases as they succeed each other during the history of the Meroitic kingdom, from the first luxury objects
arriving from early Ptolemaic Egypt and receiving a Meroitic function
(Chapter IV) through the AD first century “Roman Kiosk” at Naqa
(Chapter VIII); from seemingly unique architectural and sculptural
programs such as the “water sanctuary” at Meroe City (Chapter V)
or the Great Enclosure at Musawwarat es Sufra (Chapter VI) through
long-lived and widely distributed genres such as fine decorated pottery
(Chapter VII)