At Home in Roman Egypt

This book introduces both specialists and non-specialists to the lives of ordinary people in Roman Egypt. It explores the life course of these individuals by examining conception, childbirth, childhood, youth, adulthood, disability, religion, health, old age, death and the afterlife, among other themes.

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What was life like for ordinary people who lived in Roman Egypt? In this volume, Anna Lucille Boozer reconstructs and examines the everyday lives of non-elite individuals. It is the first book to bring a 'life course' approach to the study of Roman Egypt and Egyptology more generally. Based on evidence drawn from objects, portraits, and letters, she focuses on the quotidian details that were most meaningful to those who lived during the centuries of Roman occupation. Boozer explores these individuals through each phase of the life cycle – from conception, childbirth, childhood, and youth, to adulthood and old age – and focuses on essential themes such as religion, health, disability, death, and the afterlife. Illuminating the lives of people forgotten by most historians, her richly illustrated volume also shows how ordinary people experienced and enacted social and cultural change.