Editorial for Rosetta issue 27.
Articles
This article analyses the narrative of the film The Fourth Kind, which revolves around the concept of ‘ancient astronauts’ and the direct involvement of extraterrestrials in the emergence of civilisation in the ancient Near East. The text demonstrates how the narrative perpetuates pseudo-scientific ideas formulated by Erich von Däniken, whilst drawing on the ‘grey alien’ lore of contemporary science fiction. The aliens in The Fourth Kind serve as antagonists, imbued with supernatural abilities that align them with the demons of Judeo-Christian traditions. The article also demonstrates how the film treats ancient Near Eastern cultures as monolithic, drawing on Orientalist traditions of ‘the West’ and ‘the East’ as dialectical opposites, and places the ancient Near East within a Biblical worldview centred on ‘good’ versus ‘evil’.
The aim of this paper is to study three of Horace’s most characteristic Satires: 1.4, 1.10, and 2.1. These are programmatic and constitute the poet’s literary manifesto about the art of poetry. They also focus on the basic principles of his own satirical writing, as compared to earlier literary tradition. More specifically, in 1.4 he rebukes Lucilius’ satire, while in 1.10 he recognises his contribution to the shaping of the genre. Also, in 2.1, Horace chooses Lucilius as an exemplary poet who portrayed his life in his work. Therefore, he emphasises the virtues of his predecessor’s writing and points out his personal devotion to writing satirical poetry. Moreover, in 2.1, the poet cites all the motifs that prevail in the 1st book of his Sermones, but at the same time he highlights the literary goals of the 2nd. The paper also focuses on Horace’s ars saturica in these three poems and presents them as an essay on poetics, an element that has been discussed to a smaller extent by previous scholars.
The Nile has always occupied an important place in the Egyptian natural and cultural landscape. The ancient Egyptian civilization depended entirely on the annual donations of water and silt of the Nile flood, which played a vital political, religious, and socioeconomic role in ancient Egyptian culture. This article uses Greek papyrological evidence to examine some water-related jobs as evidence of the control and management of the Nile water resources in Graeco-Roman Egypt. It will focus in particular on the Nile conservancy and other water-related administrative officers, notably the sailors-divers, the inspectors of sowing, the sluice guards, the irrigation guards, the river-workers, and the inspectors of fishing. The transportation and distribution of water for public and personal use by the water-providers and water-carriers will also be investigated. The analysis will help us gain a better understanding of how the state and the inhabitants could manage and make the most of the Nile river and its water assets through the use of a series of administrative water-related jobs.
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Book Reviews
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