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3. How do the new interpretations differ from interpretations made in the past?
4. Did I learn something new by using the globalisation perspective as a theoretical framework?
The Taffeh temple was interpreted before by M. Raven in 1996 and 1999 and by H. Schlieman in
1979, the temple of Dendur by C. Aldred in 1978 and the temple of Shenhur by M. de Meyer and
M. Minas-Nerpel in 2012. Raven, Schlieman and de Meyer and Minas-Nerpel did not make clear
interpretations on the temples of Taffeh and Shenhur. The authors mostly describe what the
temples look like and occasionally mention what this might have meant. Aldred did give an
interpretation already in his article.
This interpretation does already seem to take into account the effects of globalisation, or at least
of increased connectivity between Rome and Egypt, but because it was written in 1978 and the
theories on globalisation have evolved since then, we might still be able to add valuable insights to
it using the globalisation theory (Aldred 1978; de Meyer and Minas-Nerpel 2012; M. Raven 1996;
M. Raven 1999).
The reason why interpretations are important is because the archaeological record is incomplete
and can therefore only give clues about the nature of complex social interactions between
individuals and groups. These interpretations need a theoretical perspective to work. One
perspective to use is the globalisation theory. This means that I will consider the fact that
globalisation was occurring in this period and therefore that certain cultural characteristics were
exchanged. This means that an Egyptian temple does not necessarily have to represent the
Egyptian culture. Due to globalisation certain cultural characteristics are exchanged, this includes
architectural elements, such as those used in temples. Therefore a temple with Egyptian
characteristics might not have been part of the Egyptian culture at all, but rather the Roman
culture, as this style became popular with the Romans in the Roman period in Egypt.
What is interesting about the globalisation theory is that it is relatively new and therefore gives us
a new perspective on archaeological materials. Interpretations in the past often define
archaeological objects such as the Taffeh temple as either belonging to one culture or another,
based on ‘typical’ architecture or decoration. The globalisation perspective might be able to be
used as a tool to show the connection between the different cultural elements, which is what I will
try to do in this thesis with my interpretation.