Three Gateways to Egypt: The Nile Festival Mosaic at Sepphoris as a Geographical and Hodological Route Map

This study identifies the Nile Festival mosaic in the Nile Festival Building at Sepphoris, of the early fifth century CE, as a map of travel routes that combines the geographical, ecological and cultural organization of Lower Egypt with hodological logic. The map presents three points of entry into Egypt: by the Pelusiac branch, for travellers reaching Pelusium through Gaza and northern Sinai; by the canal linking the Delta with the Bitter Lakes and the Red Sea, for travellers coming through Sinai and Clysma; and by sea to Alexandria. The routes of arrival are integrated into the depiction of the journey in Lower Egypt and of the celebrations of the rising of the Nile in Alexandria. The reading of the mosaic as a map arose from the study of its mammals and their habitats, and rests on matching its waterways and sites to the geography of Egypt. The Nile god reclines above a hippopotamus, and the waterways issuing from the mouth and right nostril of the hippopotamus form the cartographic skeleton of the composition. The river issues from the mouth of the hippopotamus, widens and divides into the Pelusiac branch, which leads to Pelusium on the eastern edge of the Delta, and a broad, straight canal leading to Alexandria. A short canal branches off the Pelusiac branch towards the Bitter Lakes and the trade route to the Red Sea. A separate stream from the right nostril divides in two: a thick channel running to an elongated, reed-fringed lake, the Fayum system (the Bahr Yusuf and Lake Moeris), and a thinner, shorter channel that branches off before the lake – the overflow canal that carried northwards the surplus water not admitted into the Fayum depression, west of the main Nile, in the area where the Bahr el-Giza flows today. The thin channel ends at the beak of a teal standing on a lotus that grows from the start of the Pelusiac branch, marking the return of the surplus water to the Nile. The mosaic is built in five horizontal registers: outside the frame, birds and a blessing inscription; the agricultural zone, with the goddess Egypt, the Nile god and the flocks; the broad Nile and the Nilometer; the Serapeum hill and the celebrations; and the integrated landscape along the Pelusiac branch, where wild animals and human husbandry share one space, with predation scenes of animals of the Delta and of species also found in Sinai and the southern Negev. Rose bushes are scattered over the whole mosaic; they fill the space, adorn it and convey joy and blessing, and they attest to the renowned garland industry of Egypt and to commercial rose cultivation, their abundance indicating how common they were. At Alexandria the mosaic shows the Nilometer marked ΙΖ (17 cubits), the Serapeum hill with the column of Diocletian, a boy covered in black mud signalling from the top of the column, and the riders who bring the news of the flood to the city gates facing the sea. Read with a horizontal mirror reversal, the main arrangement of waterways and sites matches the geography of Lower Egypt, from Pelusium in the east to Alexandria in the west, including the canal turning towards the Bitter Lakes; the Fayum system is the exception to this reversal. As far as is known, the Sepphoris mosaic is the earliest example of a map of travel routes along waterways in a floor mosaic, in which a connected and branching system combines three points of entry into Egypt – by the Pelusiac branch, by the canal linking the Bitter Lakes and the Red Sea, and by sea to Alexandria – and organizes the journey in Lower Egypt through waterways, identified sites and ecological assemblages; it precedes the Madaba map. Its decipherment adds a detailed visual source for the study of geographical, ecological and cultural knowledge of Lower Egypt in Late Antiquity.