Nile Mosaic of Palestrina, Egypt, Nubia, and Rome

Nile Mosaic of Palestrina from around 100 BCE depicts the Nile Valley from a Roman perspective. Ships on the Nile, temples, flora and fauna of the Nilotic landscape, and, as the land goes further and further uphill (South, toward the Sudanese border) we see men with bows hunting, likely representing "Nubians," who were also renowned archers. Scenes such as these depict Roman fascination and obsession with Egypt and its environment, especially regarding animals, the gods, the river itself, and the unknown expanses of northeastern Africa. Roman expeditions and travelers never penetrated beyond the vast Sudd in the Sudan, but their contact with the Meroitic kingdom to the south of Egypt ensured some contact with "Ethiopians," that is, dark-skinned or black people. The following mosaics depicts fellow black devotees to Isis from Roman art from Pompeii, at least, according to Frank Snowden, a Classicist who focused on depictions and perceptions of "black Africans" in the Greco-Roman world. Behold the diversity within the priests and worshipers of Isis, a popular cult throughout Egypt, Nubia, and the Mediterranean Roman-dominated world. The cult of Isis was indeed quite popular with Nubians to the south, and, by the 6th century A.D., Byzantine Christian authorities of heavily Christianized Egypt closed down the temple at Philae, near the border in the South. Anyway, the dark figure in the upper right of the first image, near the man with light-skin in the center on top of the steps, appears to be holding a sistrum. Apparently Egyptomania, the spread of the Isis cult, and Roman imperial rule led to demands for "authentic" touches to their Egyptian-derived religion (Image of the Black in Western Art is a great source on this). Dark-skinned people, animals, and Egyptian priests, not mutually exclusive with dark-skinned, were often initiators or participants in spread of Isis to the Italian peninsula, in places such as Pompeii. The second image depicts one dark-skinned figure on top of the steps with what may be a feathered headdress, perhaps representing Bes, an Egyptian ithyphallic dward god.

A lot of Nilotic scenes in Roman art also refer to sexuality, fertility, and ancient Egyptian religion, which is no surprise given the popularity of the Isis cult or that ancient Egyptians had fertility rituals associated with the Nile's inundation of the land. Other Nilotic scenes depict dark pygmies or dwarves, which, in Greek religion, was likely an allusion to the satyr, also associated with fertility and sex. Thus, Nilotic scenes of the Roman world not only reinterpret and recycle Egyptian religious themes, but also incorporate Greek and other influences. In order to depict the "exotic" and alluring fertility and Other, dark-skinned peoples often appear, such as the black figure represented in the following mosaic, also from Pompeii. It is unclear if this black figure represents fertility, authentic Nilotic scenes, or is a servant of some sort, but the picture undoubtedly connotes sexuality.