The multiethnic environment of Ptolemaic Alexandria resulted in cross-cultural transmission of funerary practices and associated material culture that introduced many traditions to Egypt from the Mediterranean world. Along with an influx of mercenaries serving in the Ptolemaic army came cultural and artistic knowledge from their places of origin, which they (or their families) incorporated into their burials. One motif, which appears on late 4th–3rd-century painted funerary monuments from Alexandria, is that of a soldier on horseback, alluding to images of the heroic hunter or warrior on horseback found in tombs in the regions of northern Greece. These Alexandrian monuments commemorated members of the Ptolemaic cavalry, some of whom are identified as Macedonian or Thessalian by accompanying Greek inscriptions. The image of a soldier astride his rearing horse not only emphasized the deceased’s military status, but also established a link with Macedonian and Ptolemaic royal iconography. This type of self-representation served a number of purposes: to signal the deceased’s cultural and geographic origins, demonstrate his elite role in Ptolemaic society and imply connections to the Ptolemaic court, all of which were important to the immigrant inhabitants of early Alexandria as they sought to express their identity in a new geographical, cultural, and political setting.

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In Ptolemaic Egypt (ca. 332–30 BC), numerous physical spaces served as loci of identity negotiation for elite individuals inhabiting a setting where imported Greek traditions interacted with local Egyptian ones. Such negotiations, or maneuverings, often took place through visual culture. This essay explores a sample of the Greek architectural elements and surface decorations used in wealthy Ptolemaic homes and what they communicate about the residents’ sense of identity. The decorative choices made for a home conveyed information about the social status and cultural allegiances of its owner(s). Some comparisons are possible between Ptolemaic homes in Alexandria, the Delta, and the Fayyum and those from other Hellenistic sites in the eastern Mediterranean such as Priene and Delos. Elites in Alexandria and the Egyptian chora incorporated Greek traditions into their homes and adapted them in increasingly novel ways, creating architecture and surface decoration that was uniquely Ptolemaic. These households were visually in dialogue both with broader Hellenistic trends and with their Egyptian context.