ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a material reading of the Egyptianizing corpse that appears in the final book of the Ephesiaka, a novel of the Roman Imperial period written in Greek. In its dramatic context, the body embalmed “in the Egyptian manner” assumes the uncanny power of a “thing,” in Bill Brown’s sense: arresting attention and inviting engagement. Provoking an immediate reaction in the young hero Habrocomes, the corpse becomes key to the corporeal imagination of the novel, in which the physical body is weighed equally with the spiritual or emotional dimensions of eros. The corpse’s arresting presence arises from its status as an intercultural object in the intercultural space of Sicily, making this “misplaced mummy” an example of contemporary Romano-Greek engagement with Egyptianizing material culture.
