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Author Rosenmeyer, Patricia A., author

Title The language of ruins : Greek and Latin inscriptions on the Memnon Colossus / Patricia A. Rosenmeyer
Published New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2018]

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Description 1 online resource (xx, 265 pages)
Contents Reading the colossus: the Memnon inscriptions -- Worshipping the colossus: sacred tourism at Thebes -- Talking with the colossus: the rhetoric of address -- Homeric Memnon -- Sapphic Memnon -- Modern Memnon
Summary A colossal statue, originally built to honour an ancient pharaoh, still stands today in Egyptian Thebes, with more than a hundred Greek and Latin inscriptions covering its lower surfaces. Partially damaged by an earthquake, and later re-identified as the Homeric hero Memnon, it was believed to 'speak' regularly at daybreak. By the middle of the first century CE, tourists flocked to the colossus of Memnon to hear the miraculous sound, and left behind their marks of devotion (proskynemata): brief acknowledgments of having heard Memnon's cry; longer lists by Roman administrators; and more elaborate elegiac verses by both amateur and professional poets. This text is the first critical assessment of all the inscriptions considered in their social, cultural, and historical context
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and indexes
Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on April 23, 2018)
Subject Memnon (Mythological character) -- Statues -- Egypt -- Thebes (Extinct city)
Memnon (Mythological character) -- Cult -- Egypt -- Thebes (Extinct city)
SUBJECT Memnon (Mythological character) fast
Subject Inscriptions, Greek -- Egypt -- Thebes (Extinct city)
Inscriptions, Latin -- Egypt -- Thebes (Extinct city)
Pilgrims and pilgrimages -- Egypt -- Thebes (Extinct city)
HISTORY -- Ancient -- Egypt.
Civilization
Cults
Inscriptions, Greek
Inscriptions, Latin
Pilgrims and pilgrimages
Statues
SUBJECT Egypt -- Civilization -- 332 B.C.-638 A.D. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85041267
Subject Egypt
Egypt -- Thebes (Extinct city)
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2018001036
ISBN 9780190626327
0190626321
9780190626334
019062633X
9780190875282
0190875283
019062633X
9780190626334
0190626313
9780190626310