- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Maps
- Foreword
- Introduction
-
1 The Monastery of Apa Thomas at Wadi Sarga: Points of Departure for a Relative Chronology -
2 Intellectual Life in Middle Egypt: The Case of the Monastery of Bawit (Sixth–Eighth Centuries) -
3 Christianity and Monasticism in al-Bahnasa according to Arabic Sources -
4 Mesokemic or ‘Middle Egyptian’—the Coptic Dialect of Oxyrhynchos (?) -
5 The Monastery of Apollo at Bala’iza and Its Literary Texts -
6 “Twenty Thousand Nuns”: The Domestic Virgins of Oxyrhynchos -
7 Anba Isaac, Bishop of the Fayoum, al-Bahnasa, and Giza, 1834–81 -
8 The Monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary at al-Muharraq, Mount Qusqam: History and Heritage (Reflections of Its Monks) -
9 John of Shmoun and Coptic Identity -
10 Christianity in Asyut in Modern History -
11 The Place of Qusqam in the Textual Data on the Flight into Egypt -
12 John of Lykopolis -
13 Discerning the True Religion in Late Fourteenth-Century Egypt -
14 Egyptian Gnosticism from Its Cradle in the Alexandrian Quarters of the Second Century to Its Jar Tomb in the Upper Egyptian Town of Nag‘ Hammadi -
15 Notes on the Arabic Life of Ibrahim al-Fani: A Coptic Saint of the Fourteenth Century -
16 Snippets from the Past -
17 Liturgy of the Monastery of al-Muharraq -
18 L⋆ as a Secret Language -
19 Bawit in the Twenty-first Century: Bibliography 1997–2014 -
20 Children’s Burials from Antinoopolis -
21 Recent Excavations at Bawit -
22 Funerary Aspects in the Paintings from the Apollo Monastery at Bawit -
23 The Cave of John of Lykopolis -
24 Al-Shaykh Sa‘id Revisited -
25 Toward the Documentation of the Monastery of the Holy Virgin at al-Muharraq, Asyut -
26 The Monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary at al-Muharraq, Mount Qusqam: Reflections of Its Monks Today -
27 An Overview of Rock-cut Coptic Sites in Asyut -
28 Architectural Typology of Historic Coptic Churches from Oxyrhynchos to Dayr al-Ganadla - Abbreviations
- Bibliography
Snippets from the Past
Snippets from the Past
Two Ancient Sites in the Asyut Region: Dayr al-Gabrawi and Dayr al-‘Izam
- Chapter:
- (p.161) 16 Snippets from the Past
- Source:
- Christianity and Monasticism in Middle Egypt
- Author(s):
Jacques van der Vliet
- Publisher:
- American University in Cairo Press
Asyut is one of the most important sites in the Christian history of Egypt. It was a major Christian center and in late antique and early medieval times its hinterland was covered with monastic settlements and sanctuaries devoted to the cult of the martyrs, many of them centers of pilgrimage. Indeed, historical maps of the region show a remarkable density and concentration of Christian sites, stretching from the region of Abnub on the east bank, via the ancient necropolises of Asyut itself, mainly on the west bank, to the region of Shotb, south of the city. Yet all these ancient sites left surprisingly few traces in the modern scholarly record. This somewhat sad state of affairs can be attributed to the ruthless exploitation of the region by would-be archaeologists who, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, plundered the sites around Asyut, in particular the rich necropolises of the Old and Middle Kingdoms. For the Christian antiquities of the region the loss was disastrous. Architectural remains were destroyed and poorly recorded, if at all. Other evidence, apart from some inscriptions, was sold on the antiquities market to join the mass of objects and documents for which no certain provenance is known and which—as a result—became virtually worthless for historical research. This chapter illustrates these points by briefly evoking the example of two sites that in recent decades have received a certain amount of scholarly interest: Dayr al-Gabrawi (north of Asyut, near Abnub) and Dayr al-ʻIzam (west of Asyut).
Keywords: Asyut, Egypt, Christian history, Dayr al-Gabrawi, Dayr al-ʻIzam, Christianity
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- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Maps
- Foreword
- Introduction
-
1 The Monastery of Apa Thomas at Wadi Sarga: Points of Departure for a Relative Chronology -
2 Intellectual Life in Middle Egypt: The Case of the Monastery of Bawit (Sixth–Eighth Centuries) -
3 Christianity and Monasticism in al-Bahnasa according to Arabic Sources -
4 Mesokemic or ‘Middle Egyptian’—the Coptic Dialect of Oxyrhynchos (?) -
5 The Monastery of Apollo at Bala’iza and Its Literary Texts -
6 “Twenty Thousand Nuns”: The Domestic Virgins of Oxyrhynchos -
7 Anba Isaac, Bishop of the Fayoum, al-Bahnasa, and Giza, 1834–81 -
8 The Monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary at al-Muharraq, Mount Qusqam: History and Heritage (Reflections of Its Monks) -
9 John of Shmoun and Coptic Identity -
10 Christianity in Asyut in Modern History -
11 The Place of Qusqam in the Textual Data on the Flight into Egypt -
12 John of Lykopolis -
13 Discerning the True Religion in Late Fourteenth-Century Egypt -
14 Egyptian Gnosticism from Its Cradle in the Alexandrian Quarters of the Second Century to Its Jar Tomb in the Upper Egyptian Town of Nag‘ Hammadi -
15 Notes on the Arabic Life of Ibrahim al-Fani: A Coptic Saint of the Fourteenth Century -
16 Snippets from the Past -
17 Liturgy of the Monastery of al-Muharraq -
18 L⋆ as a Secret Language -
19 Bawit in the Twenty-first Century: Bibliography 1997–2014 -
20 Children’s Burials from Antinoopolis -
21 Recent Excavations at Bawit -
22 Funerary Aspects in the Paintings from the Apollo Monastery at Bawit -
23 The Cave of John of Lykopolis -
24 Al-Shaykh Sa‘id Revisited -
25 Toward the Documentation of the Monastery of the Holy Virgin at al-Muharraq, Asyut -
26 The Monastery of the Holy Virgin Mary at al-Muharraq, Mount Qusqam: Reflections of Its Monks Today -
27 An Overview of Rock-cut Coptic Sites in Asyut -
28 Architectural Typology of Historic Coptic Churches from Oxyrhynchos to Dayr al-Ganadla - Abbreviations
- Bibliography