This book ventures to approach the iconographic bilingualism of Graeco-Roman Egypt, an important field of study that remains largely unexplored. It follows the publication of Monumental Tombs of Ancient Alexandria: the Theater of the Dead (2002), where V. undertook a pioneering approach to the difficult subject of tomb decoration in Graeco-Roman Egypt. In this new publication V. widens the scope of her study including a larger sample of sites from Alexandria, Tuna el-Gebel, Leontopolis, Siwa, Dakhla and Akhmim. V. fully accomplishes the main goal of her study and carries out the first systematic description of an important sample of tombs dating from the Graeco-Roman Period, providing a consistent and coherent narrative of their pictorial programmes and uncovering social aspects related to their visual culture (Greek, Egyptian or bilingual).

In the introduction V. states the main goals of her work: exploring ‘the narrative pictorial programs of a group of decorated tombs from Ptolemaic and Roman-period Egypt’, aiming to ‘recognize their commonalities and differences across what might be perceived as ethnic and religious divides’, to ‘determine the rationale that lies behind these connections and dissonances’, and to ‘set the tomb programs within their social, political, and religious context’ (p. 1). Before engaging in further discussion, V. presents the defining concept of ‘ethnicity’, clarifying the use of classifications such as ‘Egyptian’ or ‘Greek’, in terms of tomb decoration.

From the methodological point of view, the description of the pictorial decoration of the selected sites is remarkable, revealing exceeding attention paid to detail, a rigorous use of terminology and a comprehensive approach to the iconographic programme of each tomb as a whole. Most importantly, this heavy set of information is presented with a consummate sense of elegance, allowing the reader to follow easily the description of the sites. The book also provides an unusually rich visual documentation of the sites (including 34 colour plates), some of them destroyed or currently very difficult to visit.

The descriptions make clear that tomb decoration played a major role in one necropolis in particular, Tuna el-Gebel. As V. points out, the translation of Greek myths into pictorial narratives achieved in the Chora an unprecedented level of sophistication. The repertoire of topoi inventoried in the tombs of Tuna el-Gebel includes the abduction of Persephone, the Trojan Horse and the myths of Oedipus and Orestes, all of them used in tomb decoration with specific sepulchral readings. V. relates this exuberant development of Greek visual culture not only to religious phenomena, such as the Dionysiac mystery cults, but also to political and economic circumstances regarding the social status of the Greeks in the city of Hermopolis.

Also from Tuna el-Gebel, V. discusses a good number of tombs decorated according to the Egyptian cannons. In this regard, the Tomb of Petosiris provides the most complex programme. Although a comprehensive description of the overall decoration of the tomb is provided (pp. 5–49) and its Hellenistic novelties are dealt with in detail, the relation between this monument and the pharaonic tradition of tomb decoration deserved more detailed scrutiny. For example, the thematic differentiation between the pronaos and the chapel finds its roots in the scheme used in private Theban tombs dating from the New Kingdom and not on Royal tombs, as V. suggests (p. 46). Built as small funerary temples, these tombs have T-shaped superstructures, with the longitudinal chamber (chapel) decorated with the funerary rites and the deceased's admission in the Duat (with the judgement scene), while the decoration of the transversal chamber revolves around the supply of funerary goods to the tomb. The Tomb of Petosiris follows exactly this scheme, adopting the latest developments in temple architecture, which are borrowed from the local Temple of Thoth in Hermopolis. The iconographic repertoire of the Tomb of Petosiris thus follows a very well-established pattern and it does not have a strict political reading, as an appropriation of regal prerogatives. This phenomenon thus has to be envisioned within the wider process of the sacralisation of the Egyptian necropoleis that took place as early as the eighteenth Dynasty and increased in association with the theological development of the personal piety.

The interpretation of other Egyptianising tombs, such as the House-tomb 21 at Tuna el-Gebel, should also be seen in the light of this long-term cultural trend. Although its visual programme is almost entirely based on Egyptian motifs, it actually does not follow the scheme used in the autochthonous funerary tradition, as assumed by V. (p. 133). Its iconographic repertoire is borrowed from temple decoration instead, namely from the Osirian shrines. In the Anteroom the deceased is depicted being introduced into the temple, but the Burial Room is entirely decorated as an Osirian crypt celebrating the justification of Osiris and the regeneration of Re and ignoring the depiction of the deceased. The decoration of the House-tomb 21 thus takes to unprecedented levels the interpretation of the tomb as an Osirian sacred chamber, and as such it has no parallel in the funerary Egyptian tradition.

This brief discussion clearly shows the contribution of this book in raising awareness of the importance of the necropolis of Tuna el-Gebel in Graeco-Roman Egypt. Decorated tombs from this site have no parallel in the Egyptian Chora. Nothing similar occurs in the Theban necropolis, not even in Sakara, and, in fact, the construction of decorated tombs in Egyptian territory during the Graeco-Roman Period represents itself a break with tradition. Decorated tombs ceased to be built in the late Ramesside Period (1190–1077 b.c.) with only episodic occurrences in Thebes, during the twenty-fifth Dynasty (722–655 b.c.). The revival of these tombs, particularly in Tuna el-Gebel, thus results from thorough research on ancient models dating from the distant past and, in many ways, stands as a new, one could almost say ‘reinvented’, tradition. The Egyptian decorated tombs built during this period are thus representative of an ideological reaction, more than just a conservative adherence to the past.

The putative role of Hermopolis as the epicentre of such phenomena and its role in the irradiation of this new funerary trend through the oases are some of the questions that this work makes clear as deserving further inquiry.

Alexandrian bilingual tombs are revisited by V., which suggests an influence of the Mystery cults and other Hellenistic religious phenomena, such as the heroisation of the dead. However important these aspects might be, an important phenomenon specific to Alexandrian Hellenism also deserves to be taken into consideration, namely the bilingual cult developed in the Alexandrian Serapeum. In fact, the bilingual character of Alexandrian tomb decoration seems to participate in the larger phenomenon of Egyptianisation of the city, in which the Serapeum seems to have played an important role.

With its unquestionable merits, this book is a seminal scholarly work opening new and important perspectives on the difficult and largely unexplored subject of the visual culture in Graeco-Roman Egypt. V. deserves to be commended for this important accomplishment.