Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This book proposes a rethinking of the way objects, styles, concepts, and people relate in archaeological interpretation using Egyptian and Egyptian-looking objects from the houses of the Roman Pompeii as a case study. Using anthropological and art historical theory, the author has developed a critical new method called relational perception to show how we can better incorporate the messy and intuitive processes of style perception and classification in the Roman past as well as in archaeological research in general. The goal is to arrive at a decolonial approach to style, using the classification of Egypt in domestic contexts. The houses of Pompeii yielded many objects that scholars nowadays would call Egyptian or Egyptianized artefacts. They consist of imported and locally produced objects like figurines, imported sculptures, furniture, jewellery, mosaics, or wall paintings. It is shown that the use of foreign objects in domestic contexts created a deeper connectedness and familiarity of people and their world, and a constant dealing with objects and their diverging connections enmeshed Egypt, each in their own unique way, in Roman culture. The interpretations of their presence and meaning, however, have traditionally mostly been drawn without proper contextual analysis or theoretical underpinnings, and, more problematically, the collecting and interpretation of artefacts were based on modern scholarly perceptions of what Egypt entails. This book shows how this particular Western and colonial perception and art-historical categorization have influenced our idea of Egypt in the Roman world and how they still affect the interpretation of foreign objects. Style and Assemblage in Roman Archaeology examines in detail how ‘foreign’ objects and styles were integrated into, shaped, and changed the Roman world, and serves as an excellent example to show the complexity that should be incorporated in archaeological classification and interpretation.</jats:p>