A map of knowledge: the Nile mosaic between geography and history

Abstract

This paper offers a new approach to an overly familiar object, the so-called ‘Nile mosaic’ from Palestrina. I argue that the mosaic should be understood in the context of
Greek and Roman intellectual traditions related to the form and function of geographical knowledge. This contextualisation, in turn, requires that we attempt to situate geography in relation to different kinds of knowledge. Although the evidence for this wider intellectual context in Classical Antiquity is extant to us primarily in textual form, I treat the mosaic not as an illustration of texts, but rather as their interlocutor. To exemplify the dynamic between text and image, I draw a parallel with early modern ideas about the role of scientific illustrations as illuminated recently by historians of science. Ultimately, I argue that the mosaic is not only a representation of Egypt, but simultaneously a visualisation of the history of humanity in ‘deep time’. The mosaic thus invites the viewer to ask broad philosophical questions about human origins and culture, about space and time, about geography and history, and about the nature of human learning.