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Egyptian culture had begun to spread across the Mediterranean since the Greek period. A lot of
Egyptian objects could be found throughout Rome and services to Egyptian gods could be found
throughout the empire. The spread of Egyptian religion through the Mediterranean was related to
the way Rome dealt with foreign religions. Instead of forcing their own gods onto the people of the
lands they had conquered, they welcomed foreign gods to merge with their own religion and they
incorporated the cults of others. At the same time Roman expression of religion were also
exported (Málek 1981, 55; Alcock and Osborn 2012, 272-274).
Also architectural elements were exchanged. Foreign architectural elements became part of
Roman domestic architecture as the foreign elements were integrated into the Roman culture. In
this process they lost their original ethnic and cultural associations. The Egyptian obelisks that
were exported from Egypt to Rome are an example of this. They became the symbol of Roman
imperial power (van Beek et al. 2014, 113).
Temples built by the Greeks were copied from temples of the new kingdom. The Romans
continued to use ancient Egyptian models when constructing temples. They likely did this to
legitimise their rule and gain the acceptance of Egyptian priests and the local people. Another
reason why they did this was to preserve the social and economic stability, which was as least
partly out of self interest as Egypt provided much of Rome’s grain supply (Wilkinson 2007, 27;
Clarysse 2010, 275).
It was not just Romans adopting Egyptian religion though. Egyptian villages had Greek-Roman
temples as well, dedicated to Greek and Roman gods. The style of these temples was inspired by
Greek architecture and sometimes also contained Roman elements (Alcock and Osborn 2012, 125).
Even though the style of the temples and their role in the economy did not change much, the
temples did come under firmer control by the authorities. The state still financed prominent
building projects in provincial capitals. Smaller temples were built with private funding (Alcock and
Osborn 2012, 125).