Thebes

Introduction

Located in the 4th nomos of Upper Egypt, not far from Hermonthis and Coptos, Thebes developed into two settlements on the banks of the Nile that, although in fact separate and with different characteristics, always entertained a functional dialogue that during the numerous festivals and rituals that in pharaonic times linked Amun’s sanctuaries (Luxor and Karnak) on the eastern bank with the funerary temples on the western side was manifested in all its evidence. It is therefore customary to distinguish Thebes into two distinctly different parts, Eastern Thebes and Western Thebes. This traditional division of the city, besides being justified by the different paths and prerogatives that the two settlements had during the history of ancient and late antique Egypt, represents a precise mirror of the geography of the area itself.

It is possible to follow the actual history of the city almost in parallel with the more general history of ancient Egypt. Evidence of frequentation of the area dates to the earliest dynasties, and it is probably during the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 BCE) that the western part of the city, the point where the sun sets, traditionally connected with the funerary sphere, began to be used as a necropolis. However, it was in the Middle Kingdom (2010 BC - 1640 BC) that Thebes, albeit for a relatively short period, began to take on particular importance on a “national” level thanks to Mentuhotep II (2060-2009 BCE): it was he who inaugurated the first monumental temple on the left bank, which in the following centuries would experience great seasons of construction and a dynamism not inferior to that of the work carried out to enrich the seats of Amun, the Theban god par excellence, on the east bank of the Nile. In the New Kingdom (1548 BC - 1086 BC), Thebes became the capital of the Two Lands and experienced unprecedented development: to the west, with the expansion of the royal necropolis, the construction of funerary temples and the establishment of different types of settlements, the most important of which - due to the role its inhabitants played in the expansion and enrichment of the necropolis - was undoubtedly the workers’ village of Deir el-Medina; to the east, with the continuous expansion of the temples of Karnak and Luxor. Although no longer the political capital after the Ramesside period (1291-1080 BCE), the city retained its role as the religious and cultural capital of the country and experienced a new period of political importance during the Third Intermediate Period (1086-664 BCE), during which it was in fact ruled independently from the rest of the country by parallel dynasties of Prophets and Divine Worshippers of Amun. They continued to exploit the Theban necropolis by building their tombs not far from the places where, centuries earlier, the rulers of the 18th dynasty had placed their last dwellings and their grandiose funerary temples (Pischikova, Budka, Griffin 2014). The city would no longer have reached the splendour it had at its peak, but the Late Period (664 - 332 BCE) did not coincide with a definitive decline of the site, even if it was undoubtedly the eastern bank of the Nile that showed signs of greater dynamism, particularly evident in the works carried out in Karnak by Nectanebo I (Reign 379/8–361/0 BCE), still testifying to the importance - at least on a cultural and religious level - of the ancient city. On the other hand, the progressive abandonment of the village of Deir el-Medina led, in the western part, to a more pronounced process of rupture with what had been the main function of the area, connected to the cultural and funerary sphere, as well as characterised by the presence of settlements that, over the centuries, were of vital importance for the development and expansion of the necropolis. The Ptolemaic period (332-30 BCE), in many respects, smoothed out this marked gap between the two parts of Thebes: in the east there is evidence of interventions in Karnak and Luxor by (or at least on behalf of) Alexander the Great, Filippos III Arrhidaeos, Ptolemy III Euergetes, Ptolemy IV Philopator and Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II, while on the west bank it is possible to discern traces of a resumption of temple-building activities and a significant repopulation of the village of Deir el-Medina (Vandorpe 1995; Donadoni 1999, p. 97; Wilfong 1989, pp. 93-94). It is also worth noting the persistence of sectors of the population explicitly linked to the funerary administration of the necropolis and the importance of the Theban clergy, still in this period (Devauchelle 1987; Vandorpe 1995, pp. 208-210). This “rediscovery” of Thebes in the Hellenistic period can also be intuited from the various rebellions against Ptolemaic domination, which to some extent damaged the ancient city, which, although not of particular political importance, still retained some religious and symbolic influence.

As regards Eastern Thebes, the main monuments are the grandiose complexes of Karnak and Luxor, whose thousand-year history spans from the beginning of the Middle Kingdom (with the foundation of the core of the first sanctuary at Karnak) to the Byzantine period. During the Graeco-Roman period, and then during Late Antiquity, it was around the complex of Karnak that the main settlement of the eastern bank of the Nile developed. Known as Diospolis Magna/Διὸς Πόλις Μεγάλη, the settlement maintained in its very name the close link with the god Amun, sincretically identified with Zeus, whose strict connection with Thebes was clearly recognisable in the ancient name of the city, i.e. N(i)w.t-n-Imn, “The City of Amun”. However, in Demotic sources the city was simply called N(i)w.t (“the City”), that survives in Coptic documents as ⲛⲏ. As for the toponym “Karnak”, an Arabic dialectal word for “fortified town”, it derives from “Castron of Diospolis”, a name attested in later sources (Vandorpe 1995, p. 211). The city was divided into two districts: the northern one located north of Amun’s precint, west of Montu’s temenos; the southern one located south of Amun’s main temple. The nucleus of Karnak’s complex was established during the Middle Kingdmon, but it was during the New Kingdom that it reached its apogee, when it started a great season of constructions and addictions to the core of Amun’s complex and the temenoi of Montu (north of Amun’s precint), Khonsu (south-east), and Mut (south) have been added (see Donadoni 1999 for a detailed overview of the complex). As abovementioned, Karnak maintained its importance even during the Graeco-Roman period, when around its structure the main settlement of the eastern shore developed. During the Late Antique period, the area of Karnak was occupied by the Christian inhabitants of Eastern Thebes. In particular, churches, monasteries, rooms have been added inside and around the structures of the old temple, even if it is hard to properly reconstruct the topography of the site in its various phases of occupation, because of the lack of specific studies or because several structures have been severely damaged or destructed. However, it is possible to recognize, in the structures around the first pylon and in the courts between the 7th and 8th and between the 9th and 10th pylone of Amun’s temple, some of the monasteries of Karnak (Ghaly 2017). Moreover, a church was installed inside the edifice of Amenhotep II, while other two were inside the Akh-menu and inside the hypostyle hall of the temple of Khonsu. On the walls of the temple there are also traces of graffiti and pictures dating back to the Byzantine period, one of which reports a list of archimandrites, starting with the name of Shenoute.

As regards Luxor, the other most important complex of Eastern Thebes, connected to Karnak by a road lined with sphynxes, during the New Kingdom it was mainly linked to the Opet Feast, during which the simulacra of the Theban triad Amun-Mut-Khonsu were carried in processions along the Nile. The nucleus of Luxor was connected especially to the names of Amenhotep III and of Ramses II, but the complex in its entirety retained its importance for millennia, and construction work was carried out in the area even during the Byzantine period and beyond (see Donadoni 1999 for a detailed overview of the complex). In Hieroglyphic texts the complex was known as Ip(.t-rsj.t), “the (Southern) Adyton”. In Coptic texts, the sanctuary was called ⲧⲡⲟⲗⲓⲥ ⲁⲡⲉ/ⲧⲡⲟⲗⲓⲥ ⲡⲁⲡⲉ, while in Greek sources from Thebes are attested the toponyms ῏Οφις/Ἆφις and similar. However, it is difficult to say without any doubt that ῏Οφις/Ἆφις refer clearly to Luxor. Nevertheless, a toponym Ὠφιῆον and similar is attested since the 1st century BCE to the 3rd CE and it has been suggested that it refers to Luxor (Vandorpe 1995, p. 219). This seems to be the opinion of Donadoni (Donadoni 1999, p. 100). Later, in early Arabic period, Luxor was called in Greek sources Τὰ Τρία Κάστρα (ⲡϣⲟⲙⲧ ⲛⲕⲁⲥⲧⲣⲟⲛ in Coptic). During the Graeco-Roman era, Luxor maintained a certain prestige, permanently housing a Roman garrison, mainly to defend it against incursions and rebellions that threatened it from the south. Luxor was the second most important settlement of the eastern shore, and, during the Byzantine period, it was re-occupied by the Christian inhabitants of Thebes. Inside and around the complex, five churches have been built - with massive reuse of Pharaonic materials -, the earliest one (6th-7th century) being that of St Thecla, located south-east of the eastern pylon. The best-preserved church lies underneath the Abu el-Haggag mosque, while a third church is also located on the eastern side of the temple. Two other churches are in the western side (the first one outside the court of Ramses II, the second one outside the colonnade of Amenhotep III), and both articulated in three naves. In the first of these two churches, liturgical equipment of a certain value were found, indicating that a religious community of a certain importance was established around Luxor.

Concerning the more complex landscape of Western Thebes, mention has already been made of the ancient exploitation as a necropolis, both for the burial of individuals and, above all, of sovereigns and members of the royal family. The election of the area as a true “city of the dead” derives precisely from its location on the west bank of the Nile, in the part traditionally associated with the funerary sphere. This is evident in the very toponym of Western Thebes, referred to simply as “The West of Thebes”, “The Western Region of Thebes”, “The Great West”, “The Desert of Thebes” or hft-hr nb.s (“That which is in front of its Lord”).

The Theban necropolis covers an area of about 10 km2 and runs in a south-west/north-east direction from the rather clear border with the cultivated land in the east and the rocky plateau bordering the desert in the west (cfr. Weeks 2001; Donadoni 1999, pp. 115-118; Bonomi 1906). Nowadays, the fertile belt extends for about 3 km from the bank of the Nile. Leaving the river behind and proceeding westwards, the first monument one encounters, still in the fertile zone, is the pair of colossal statues known as the “Colossi of Memnon” that once adorned the almost completely destroyed funerary complex of Amenhotep III. Hence the name τὰ Μεµνόνεια to indicate Western Thebes in Graeco-Roman times. However, the precise origin of the name remains uncertain: perhaps it should be linked to the Egyptian mennu (“foundations, religious monuments”), a term probably at the origin of the Greek name of the “Colossi of Memnon” (Maspero 1871, p. 60; Winlock, Crum 1926, p. 4; Bataille 1952, pp. 1-21). In any case, the identification by the Greeks between the statues of Amenhotep III and the mythical king son of Aurora, Memnon, is well attested. Further to the south of the necropolis and in the strip of limestone mixed with sand that joins the cultivated area to the slopes of the vast plateau, one of the most important settlements in the history of the region is encountered: Medinet Habu (Hölscher 1934; Hölscher 1954), a village that arose in the immediate vicinity of the funerary temple of Ramses III. A short distance to the south-east is the heb-sed palace of Amenhotep III (Malqata), while following this boundary strip in a north-easterly direction one comes across a series of temples of rulers from the 18th and 19th dynasties, until reaching el-Tarif (where the oldest burials in the area are located), at the northern end of the necropolis, and Dra Abu el Naga, where many tombs from the 17th dynasty to the Ramesside period are located. This innermost belt, closer to the rocky plateau, houses some of the most famous monuments of the necropolis and several of the settlements that will be analysed here. Following the slopes of the mountain, this time from the north-eastern to the south-western corner, one proceeds through the Assasif valley to a vast area at the foot of the massif known as Deir el-Bahari, where the funerary temples of Mentuhotep II, Hatshepsut and Thutmosis III stand. To the south, beyond the necropolis of el-Kokha, the modern village of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna (Polz 2001) is the centre of the Theban necropolis: there are dozens of tombs from the Pharaonic period, mainly belonging to high-ranking soldiers and important members of the clergy. The settlements of Qurnet Murai and Deir el-Medina (one containing several tombs from the 18th and 19th dynasties, the other coinciding with the village whose inhabitants enriched the western city with monuments) connect with the southwest corner of the mountain, where the Valley of the Queens (Biban el-Malikat) begins. Finally, in the northern part of the plateau, beyond el-Qurn (the highest point of the massif, at about 480 m above ground level), the Valley of the Kings (Biban al-Muluk) extends as far as Dra Abu el Naga to the north. It is in this area that most of the royal tombs are located, probably the most remembered and studied monuments of the entire site.

Even if one merely glances at the map of Western Thebes, it is immediately clear that the area was frequented not only in the “classical”, pharaonic period, but also maintained a dynamism of no less significant in the Roman and Byzantine periods. This is evident, among other things, when one considers that many of the place names used to refer to areas of the necropolis known above all for the ruins of pharaonic monuments served to indicate monastic settlements or Christian buildings of which little remains today: this is the case of the many place names containing the Arabic term deir (“monastery”), which connotes two of the most studied sites in western Thebes, such as Deir el-Bahari and Deir el-Medina. But, apart from this minor toponymy note, it is certain that Thebes - although far from its glorious past as a capital and with a much more provincial layout - experienced a new vitality during the Roman and, above all, the Byzantine period. Far from being just a series of villages on either side of the Nile, as Strabo described it (Strabo, Geogr. XVII, 1, 46), the city maintained a certain economic dynamism and was also of strategic importance. Thebes’ fame still attracted many visitors and onlookers, who left evidence of their passage through inscriptions on centuries-old monuments (Delattre, Heilporn 2008, pp. vi-viii). New tombs had not been built in the west for a long time, but in the Roman period there are many cases of the re-use of old burials, and many mummies from this period have been discovered in excavations of much older tombs. This is the case, for example, of the Roman mummies found by H.E. Winlock during the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s excavation campaign of 1923-1924 near the wall of the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari (Winlock 1924, p. 32; Winlock 1942, p. 99). The occupation and reuse of ancient tombs for burials (including animal burials) from the Roman period are attested not only near the temple of the Pharaoh-Queen but also in the central part of the necropolis, at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, as well as at Deir el-Medina, in the Valley of the Queens and in the Valley of the Kings. The presence of more important cemeteries around Dra Abu el Naga and in Medinet Habu is also attested. In this very area, in the immediate vicinity of the temple of Ramses III, stood the village known in Roman and Byzantine times as Memnoneia or Djeme, one of the two large nuclei (Vandorpe 1995, pp. 211 and 222; Wilfong 1989, pp. 96-103) into which the western part of Thebes was divided in this period. Like Deir el-Medina, Djeme does not appear as a village built in Roman times: the settlement around the temple of Ramses III dates back, in fact, at least to the XXI dynasty, and its antiquity is evidenced by the name attested in hieroglyphic texts since Pinedjem I (Reign: 1070-1032 BCE) in the form IA.t Amt, Amt or ^*Amt, passed into Coptic in the form ϫⲏⲙⲉ or ϭⲏⲙⲓ. The Byzantine period also saw a certain continuity and greater dynamism in the exploitation of the ancient structures of the necropolis through various types of installations (O’Connell 2007). Looking at the map of Western Thebes in this period one can see the presence of small nuclei of settlements in approximately the same areas occupied in the Roman period. Reference is mainly made to inhabited areas such as Deir el-Medina and Djeme, but there are many more sites where churches, hermitages, cemeteries, and monastic settlements were established, such as those of Mark at Qurnet Murai, Epiphanius and Cyriacus at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, Phoibammon at Deir el-Bahari, Paul at Dra Abu el Naga and Deir el-Rumi on the opposite side of the necropolis, north of the Valley of the Queens.

Djeme

Pharaonic Period

In Pharaonic times the area called *Amt or +Amt (+mA in Demotic texts; see Daressy 1897, pp. 1-2; Winlock and Crum 1926, p. 4; Otto 1975, pp. 1108-1109; Amélineau1893, pp. 151-153; Vandorpe 1995, pp. 223-226; Bataille 1952, pp. 1-39; Pestman 1993, pp. 411-415), near which the huge 20th dynasty sanctuary known as $nm.t-nHH (“United in Eternity”, on which see Nelson 1942) was built, already contained a small temple dedicated to Amun. This oldest temple consecrated to the Theban god, located in the south-eastern corner of the temenos of the great Ramesside sanctuary, dates in its general layout to the 18th dynasty (Hölscher 1939, pp. 43-51), although it was continually enlarged and partly rebuilt over the centuries, until the period of Roman rule. Although small in size, the sanctuary was always recognised as a particularly sacred place (this is, actually, its Egyptian name: +sr-s.t, “The sacred place”), the home of the Theban god in the western part of his city and the site of the tombs of the primordial gods and Amun himself. As a whole, the structure can be perceived as one of the earliest evidence of occupation of the area: this is evident considering that, during the 18th dynasty, Thutmosis III intervened on the building, complaining about its state of abandonment (Hölscher 1939, p. 19; Sethe 1907, p. 882) and thus proving the religious importance of the site. It was probably one of the first structures to be explicitly connected to Amun on the western bank, whose original construction can be dated to the Middle Kingdom (Hölscher 1939,p. 46), a period in which the first important construction works of religious and burial buildings began in the necropolis. The temple of Amon at Medinet Habu, therefore, can rightly be considered the first witness to the sacredness of the area, often, rather than *Amt or +Amt, referred to as IA.t *Amt, “The mountain of Djeme” or “The sacred place of Djeme”, hence the epithet taken by Amon of Djeme, “The one of the sacred place”. Considering its importance over the centuries, it is not surprising that the site was first chosen by Ramses III for the construction of his grandiose funerary temple and later by the people of Western Thebes, who made the area a real settlement a few decades after the king’s death. As in the case of Deir el-Medina, the exploitation of the village around the temple of Ramses III can also provide important insights into the general situation in western Thebes: it is known that the inhabitants of the area first set up their houses outside the sacred perimeter of the temple, and then entered the temenos, especially after the increasingly frequent periods of turmoil experienced by the ancient capital from the Third Intermediate Period onwards. However, it was not only the simple inhabitants of the area who kept the site of Medinet Habu alive, but also the new rulers - starting with Pinedjem I - intervened on the temple during the later periods of Egyptian history, remodelling and enlarging its structures and creating new fortifications to protect the settlement, which was also inhabited and exploited by the priestly class and the necropolis administration (Hölscher 1954, pp. 1-35). Thus, from a period not long after the death of Ramses III, the settlement of Medinet Habu began to grow and take the form of a real village; nevertheless, during the first millennium BCE it was probably not inhabited continuously in every historical phase, since some periods show no evidence of construction activity and, by the time Egypt fell under Roman rule, the houses built around the great sanctuary had long been practically uninhabited (Wilfong 1989, p. 96; Bataille 1951; Bataille 1952).

Roman Period

In Roman times, the gradual repopulation of the area, which may have begun during the Ptolemaic period and in parallel with the village of Deir el-Medina, was completed. A glance at the map of Western Thebes in the Roman period shows the extent of the settlement near the hill of Djeme: no longer limited to the few houses built within the temenos of Ramses III - the core of the settlement, sporadically inhabited in previous centuries - the village expanded outside the ancient walls, especially in the south-east and north, bordering the temple of Ay and Horemheb. This resumption of civil construction activity was accompanied by an important phase of consolidation of the structures and the construction of new fortifications to protect what, in this period, can to all intents and purposes be defined as a town. The two towers erected at the south-east and north-west corners of the walls of the ancient New Kingdom temple bear witness to these defensive reinforcements. These works are not surprising in a phase of Thebes’ history characterised - if not by the frequent uprisings of the Late Period and the Ptolemaic period - by periodic riots. Within the κάστρον Μεµνονείων a particularly important place was held by the now very small ancient temple of Amun, testifying to the influence exerted, even in Roman times, by such an archaic place of worship and, evidently, always present, and relevant in the religious life of the population of Western Thebes. The last interventions on the structure date back to the period of Roman rule: the name of Emperor Antoninus Pius will be the last to be mentioned in the history of the extensions carried out on the sacred building, probably in this period also connected to the small sanctuary erected by the emperor in the Valley of the Queens (Lecuyot 1999, p. 36).

Late Antique Period

It was over the Roman village that the - if not larger - more populated and better-preserved settlement of the Byzantine period developed, during which the city reached its apogee (Hölscher 1954, pp. 45-57; Wilfong 1989, pp. 97-99; Wilfong 2002; Grossmann 1991). Observing the ruins of the Byzantine-era village, it is easy to guess the demographic increase of Djeme’s population from the exceptional number of dwellings built around the temple of Ramses III, to the point of surrounding the small sanctuary of Amun, where the cults had ceased to be celebrated. Within this veritable crowd of houses built on the ruins of the ancient ones and close to the age-old pharaonic monuments, it is not always possible to clearly distinguish the individual structures in all their constituent elements. However, some salient features can be distinctly highlighted: one refers to the style of the dwellings, built mainly of sun-dried mud bricks, windowless, barrel-vaulted, with very narrow passages, stairs, and entrances. What is even more interesting is that access to these houses was only possible from inside the city, the entrances being located towards the centre of the village, where the New Kingdom sanctuary stood. The impression one gets is that of a closed city, protected from incursions and at the same time cut off from the life of western Thebes in its broadest sense, including the entire western shore of the city. This is not true, since Djeme in the Byzantine period was far from being a town without contacts, especially with some of the monastic communities in the necropolis, such as the monasteries of Epiphanius and Phoibammon (Burchfield 2014). In addition to the exceptional number of dwellings, the demographic development of the settlement is also reflected in the creation of a new necropolis in the western part of Medinet Habu and the continued exploitation of the Roman cemetery. Djeme in the Byzantine era, with its few thousand inhabitants, was a particularly lively centre in many respects, as evidenced by the many documentary texts from the area, concerning the typical work carried out by the population, and the numerous writings on legal and economic matters, relating to money lending and buying and selling (cfr. O.Medin.HabuCopt.).

As for the composition of the inhabitants, one must think of the coexistence of groups still linked to traditional cults and, above all, Christians, whose presence is sporadically signalled in the old Roman cemetery thanks to crosses placed near the graves, and then becomes, from an archaeological point of view, evident especially in view of the presence of at least four churches (Hölscher 1954, pp. 51-57; Wilfong 2002, pp. 12-13; Winlock and Crum 1926, pp. 4-5) within the settlement of Djeme. The most important of all, the one that replaced the small temple of Amun as the focal point of the late antique city, was the one built at the second court of the temple of Ramses III, known in documents as ⲧⲕⲁⲑⲟⲗⲓⲕⲏ ⲉⲕⲕⲗⲏⲥⲓⲁ ⲛ̄ϫⲏⲙⲉ (“the Catholic church of Djeme”, see Winlock and Crum 1926, p. 116; Soldati 2018; Heurtel 2008, p. 69; Wipszycka 1997, pp. 244-245). Nowadays, not very much remains of the structure and the many columns that adorned it, especially after the work carried out on the area at the end of the 19th century, which also caused damage to other buildings dating back to the Byzantine and Early Islamic periods. A second, smaller church was located outside the sanctuary wall, in the south-eastern part and at the site previously occupied by baths from the Roman period. Like the large church in the courtyard of the temple of Ramses III, this smaller church is also characterised by a rectangular plan. Compared to the former, more columns and architectural elements were found in situ, such as the archivolt decorated with vine leaves or fragments bearing traces of red pigments. In addition, traces of buildings were found around the sacred building that were somehow connected to the church and whose function has not yet been clarified. The third church stood in the northern part of the village, bordering the boundary wall of the temple of Ay and Horemheb and, therefore, close to the Roman cemetery. The structure shows signs of two building phases, evident by looking at the different types of bricks used. The first stage of construction seems to date back to Roman times; the second, from the Byzantine period, significantly modified the pre-existing building, probably to adapt its forms to its new use. No decorative elements have been found in this church, but the presence of several burials in the immediate vicinity is worthy of note, some dating back to Roman times, others, indicated by engraved or painted crosses on the sarcophagi, dating back to the early Christian period (early 5th century) (Boutros, Décobert 1986, p. 80). The small temple of Amun, whose importance over the centuries has already been underlined, also housed a church, inside which frescoes depicting St. Mena have been found (Wilber 1940). Finally, many of the documents from the area refer to other churches, although the relevant archaeological evidence for their presence has not yet been identified.

## Monastery of Phoibammon

### Pharaonic Period

North of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, on the slopes of the Theban plateau and in the western part of the Assasif valley, lies the area known today as Deir el-Bahari, the “northern monastery”. The area is home to some of the best-known monuments of the necropolis: the funerary temple of Mentuhotep II, the oldest monumental construction in western Thebes, the ©sr-Dsrw sanctuary of Hatshepsut and the +sr-Ax.t of Thutmosis III. During the reign of the three sovereigns, the area had a particularly close relationship with the temples located on the east bank of the Nile: in fact, several processional routes connected the sanctuaries of Karnak and Luxor to those of Deir el-Bahari, especially during the festival known as the Beautiful Feast of the Valley (Hb-nfr-n-jnt), whose development is closely linked to the name of Queen Hatshepsut. The importance of the site did not diminish over the centuries: during the Third Intermediate Period the area was accorded the status of a particularly sacred site, as evidenced by the numerous burials of priests, members of the families of the Prophets of Amun and high-ranking people located in the immediate vicinity of the surrounding wall of the temple of the Pharaoh-Queen (Aston 2014; Winlock 1926; Winlock 1926; Winlock 1942; Winlock 1942; Barwick 2008).

Graeco-Roman Period

In the following centuries the area was occasionally used, however, from the Late Period to the Ptolemaic-Roman period, Deir el-Bahari retained a certain prestige, serving mainly as a place of pilgrimage and healing, approximately until the 2nd-3rd century AD (Arnold 2005b; Łajtar 2006). In Roman times, moreover, some of the ancient burials excavated around the surrounding wall of the temple of Hatshepsut were reused to accommodate new depositions.

Late Antique Period

During the Byzantine period the area housed a particularly important monastery in the panorama of Christian Western Thebes, located in the upper part of the funerary temple of Hatshepsut. This is the structure referred to in today’s toponym Deir el-Bahari, e.g. “the Northern Monastery”. The monastic community built on the ruins of Hatshepsut’s temple was founded, between the end of the sixth and the beginning of the seventh century by Abraham, bishop of Hermonthis (590-620) and first superior of the monastery, in which he took up residence, at least for some periods (cfr. P.KRU 105; O.Crum Ad. 59; O’Connell 2007, p. 258). In Western Thebes, the new foundation manifested from the beginning its position of pre-eminence over the other settlements of the necropolis, for several reasons. Certainly, the presence of the bishop in the monastery he founded (Lecuyot and Thirard 2008, p. 142; Winlock and Crum 1926, p. 14; Papaconstantinou 2001, pp. 219-223; Wipszycka 2001, p. 226) - relatively distant from Hermonthis, where the episcopal see was located - was of particular importance for the subsequent development of the community. In this way a close link was guaranteed not only with the ecclesiastical authority, but also, and above all, with the different realities of Christian West Thebes. These communities could look to the monastery dedicated to Saint Phoibammon as a clearly recognisable point of reference because of its location and, indeed, because of the presence of the bishop, who from there could exercise his control over the various types of Christian personalities and more or less organised groups around the Mount of Djeme (Delattre and Lecuyot 2016, p. 712). Nowadays very little remains of the Christian ruins of Deir el-Bahari, mainly because of the numerous archaeological excavations conducted on the remains of the Pharaonic age without any regard for the monuments of the Byzantine era (O’Connell 2007; Godlewski 1986). Between the 18th and 19th centuries, when the explorations and the first excavations of the Theban necropolis began, the ruins of the monastery were still clearly visible. The Christian buildings and traces present in the vicinity and inside the temple of Hatshepsut are mentioned in the Description de l’Égypte, which also mentions the name of the English explorer and bishop Richard Pococke, who visited and left a brief description of the Byzantine-era ruins of Deir el-Bahari in one of his travel diaries (Jomard 1821, pp. 343 and 346; Pococke 1743, p. 100). In the first half of the 19th century, when Western Thebes began to be systematically excavated, only occasional allusions to the buildings constituting the Monastery of Phoibammon and to traces of Christian wall depictions present within the ancient pharaonic temple resurfaced - in descriptions, diaries, and excavation reports. In the ‘20s of the 19th century, it was the English traveller Henry Westcar the first to provide an accurate account of the name by which the area of the temple of Hatshepsut was known, also known to John G. Wilkinson (Herzog 1969, p. 209; Wilkinson 1835, p. 90; Bonomi 1906, p. 81; Winlock and Crum 1926, p. 12; Naville 1894, p. 6). In the same years the area was also visited by Robert Hay, who made several drawings and plans of the ruins of the Byzantine period, now preserved in the British Library and invaluable for the reconstruction of the structure of the monastery. Little other information - often not much more than mentions - regarding the Christian remains of Deir el-Bahari can be found in the accounts of some of the other explorers and archaeologists who worked at Western Thebes in the first half of the 19th century. The first real excavation campaign carried out around the temple of Hatshepsut was the one directed by Auguste Mariette between 1858 and 1866. Even in this case, however, little importance was attributed to the remains of the Christian monastery, the destruction of which began mainly during these excavations, moreover without any documentation regarding the state of the Byzantine ruins. At the end of the century, between 1893 and 1899, the direction of the works at Deir el-Bahari was taken over by Édouard Naville on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Fund (EEF). In the report of the excavations, published in six volumes (Naville 1894-1908), few references are made to the surviving structures of the monastery, whose destruction - again carried out without leaving any trace of documentation - was completed during the campaigns directed by the Swiss Egyptologist. Later, in the period between 1911 and 1936 around the temple of Hatshepsut worked the mission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art directed by Herbert E. Winlock (Winlock 1942). Even during these excavations, the focus was primarily on the remains of the Pharaonic age, but during these campaigns several hundred ostraca were brought to light, which were added to the similar findings made by the mission led by Naville (O.Crum; O.Brit.Mus.Copt. I; P.KRU). Finally, in 1961, the responsibility for the work at Deir el-Bahari passed to the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, which was given the task of restoring the temple of the Pharaoh-queen and is still in charge of research in the area. As far as this thesis is concerned, in the 1970s, the Polish mission collected the surviving evidence of Christian graffiti and drawings on the remains of the walls of the ancient monastery. The results of the study - together with those provided by new excavations - were incorporated a few years later into the publication of Włodzimierz Godlewski, Le monastère de St. Phoibammon (1986), which had the merit of providing a reconstruction of the articulation of the monastery's structures, helping to clarify the importance of the structure in the panorama of Western Thebes. The descriptions and drawings of the explorers and scholars who observed the Christian ruins when they were still in a good state of preservation, before the interventions of Mariette and especially Naville, were also very helpful. In the following lines, an archaeological description of the Christian structures, as reconstructed by Godlewski, and a brief history of the site will be given. The Monastery of Phoibammon occupied the upper part of the temple of Hatshepsut, and in particular the third terrace and the north-western part of the second (Godlewski 1986, pp. 21-51; Godlewski 1991; O’Connell 2007, pp. 254-259; Winlock and Crum 1926, pp. 12-14; Wipszycka 2009, pp. 178-182; Arnold 2005, pp. 135-140), in a strategic position with an excellent view of the Theban necropolis. It was founded between the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 7th century and was active until approximately the second half of the 8th century, the period to which the last documents connected with the monastery date (Wipszycka 2009, p. 184; Garel 2016, p. 719). Although abandoned, it was visited by several pilgrims in the following centuries, who left traces of their passage in graffiti on the walls of the temple (Godlewski 1986, pp. 141-152). Regarding the architecture of the monastery, the structures constituting the new Christian foundation partly coincided with sections of the ancient sanctuary, reused for Christian worship, and partly were built with mud bricks and stones taken from the Pharaonic temple (Naville 1894, p. 6). It was the ancient buildings of the upper part of the sanctuary - including the chapels of Amon, Hatshepsut and Thutmosis I - that were mostly reused, forming the main core of the monastery. The queen’s chapel was reused as a church by the monks of the complex, who partly adapted this and other buildings on the upper terrace to accommodate the new cult. To this end, several inscriptions and wall paintings from the Pharaonic period were covered or destroyed, replaced by Christian figures and graffiti, including images of saints and Christ already noted by the first explorers who visited the area of Deir el-Bahari. Among the structures erected in the Byzantine period, the most imposing was the tower, the presence of which is also a feature of other Theban settlements (e.g. the topos of Epiphanius and the hermitage in the tomb MMA 1152). The tower of the Monastery of Phoibammon - about 8 m high and visible in photographs from the end of the 19th century (Mariette 1878, pl. 60) - occupied the south-eastern corner of the main courtyard and was still fairly well preserved when the work of the mission led by Naville began. Near the tower and on the upper terrace (up to the Sun-chapel) remains of brick buildings testify to the existence of various structures belonging to the monastery. It is not always possible to guess their functions, but some of them were probably used by the monks as cells, while the building near the solar altar may have been the monastery’s archive, since hundreds of ostraca were discovered nearby by Édouard Naville. Like other topoi and small communities in Western Thebes, the monastery described here had its own cemetery, located around the royal chapels on the upper terrace of the temple. Several mummies of monks were already found by Pococke when he visited Deir el-Bahari in 1738. Others were unearthed in the following century by Lepsius and Naville. The monks of the Monastery of Phoibammon, like those of Deir el-Medina and of the topos of Epiphanius, were also buried with very few ornaments: a leather belt and a cloak on the upper part of the body. Regarding the discovery of texts, in addition to numerous documentary fragments - which are in any case of great interest for the reconstruction of the history and importance of the monastery against the backdrop of Western Thebes in the Byzantine era - a numerically less substantial part consists of literary or documentary fragments containing biblical quotations.

Qurnet Murai

A little to the north of the area of the village of Djeme, in the north-eastern part of the Qurnet Murai hill, lies the topos of Saint Mark. The site, which is also closely connected to the village of Deir el-Medina, was the subject of systematic archaeological investigations conducted by the Institut français d'archéologie orientale (IFAO), especially since the 1970s. A definitive and organised analysis of the archaeological remains from the Roman and Byzantine periods is still lacking, while a study of the texts on ostraca and papyri from the topos has recently been published (O.Saint-Marc). In any case, the general description of the area is mainly based on the excavation reports and other contributions (Sauneron 1970; Sauneron 1971; Sauneron 1972; Sauneron 1973; Sauneron 1974; Winlock and Crum 1926, p. 15; Wilfong 1989, pp. 124-125; Monneret de Villard 1950, pp. 495-500). The site in question is a Coptic monastery built on top of older tombs dating from the Late Period (653-332 BCE) and inhabited in the Byzantine era by various anchorites, especially between the 5th and 7th centuries. During the first excavation campaigns (1970-1971), the most important finds were Christian ceramics from the 6th-7th centuries, mainly amphorae and plates decorated with plant and animal motifs. Particularly interesting was the discovery of several mummies from the Byzantine period around the church, one of which was the subject of an important study by Georges Castel (Castel 1979). But, even more than amphorae and ceramic fragments, it is mainly ostraca and (to a lesser extent) papyri - most of which in Coptic - that represent the most significant part of the discoveries. During the first two years of excavation, it was also possible to identify the sacred building with the church dedicated to St Mark the Evangelist (Sauneron 1971, p. 207). Analysis of the archaeological finds has also made it possible to outline the characteristics of the small community on the hill of Qurnet Murai, inhabited by monks dedicated to weaving and the wine trade, among whom the hegumen Mark stands out, whose name reappears several times in the monastery’s documents. The 1973-1974 campaigns yielded numerous examples of pottery, amphorae with elegant ornamental motifs and an exceptional number of Coptic ostraca, as well as a few papyri and mummified bodies of monks. The apogee of the site lies between the 5th and 7th centuries, while the abandonment of the topos most likely coincided with the beginning of Arab rule, between the end of the 7th and the beginning of the 8th centuries. Regarding the architecture of the so-called Monastery of St Mark (Heurtel 2007; Martin and Coquin 1991; Castel 1991) two clearly distinct mud-brick buildings can be recognised. The first, larger one, almost on top of the Qurnet Murai hill, housed common rooms and was surrounded by high walls. Part of the structure was intended for the main church (in the eastern part of which was the small community cemetery), while smaller rooms served as workshops, refectory, and storerooms. To the south, separated by a passage, stood the second building. Smaller in size, it contained some cells and the kitchen. It was also connected to two tombs dating from the Pharaonic period, which were inhabited by monks in the Byzantine era. Considering the size of the complex, in its heyday it probably only accommodated a small number of people, perhaps only five or six monks. Finally, the archaeological study of the site has made it possible to identify three phases of use of the topos: the first, coinciding with the initial period, during which a few hermits, encouraged by the fame of holiness of a more important anchorite, had taken up residence in one of the small cells that had sprung up around the main nucleus of the monastery; the second, during the period of maximum flowering, corresponding to a more organised community, with clearly delineated and functional spaces; the third, when the decline of the topos had begun or it had been definitively abandoned, with the transformation of the site into a place of pilgrimage.

Deir el-Medina

On the slopes of the plateau, in the south-western part of the Theban necropolis, lies the second major settlement of Western Thebes: Deir el-Medina. As in the case of the village of Djeme at Medinet Habu, Deir el-Medina is not a settlement from Roman period or Late Antiquity, but a real village whose origins date back to the Pharaonic period, although its current name – Deir el-Medina, e.g. “Monastery of the City” - refers to a Christian building. It was, in fact, during the New Kingdom that the settlement was inaugurated to house the specialised workers responsible for the construction and decoration of the tombs and pharaonic temples that, particularly during the 18th and 19th dynasties, made the western necropolis worthy of rivalling - in terms of dynamism - the works carried out on the eastern shore of Nile, in Karnak and Luxor. In both Roman and Byzantine times, Deir el-Medina was home to a large population, although certainly not on a par with the neighbouring village of Djeme. As in Medinet Habu, there were necropolis areas in the vicinity of the settlement, which were also used in the Byzantine period and whose origins date back to the Pharaonic period (Meskell 1999; Montserrat and Meskell 1997). Overall, since the first half of the 19th century the site has been the subject of numerous excavation campaigns and countless publications by scholars from different disciplines (e.g. Bruyère 1927; Bruyère 1928; Bruyère 1930; Bruyère 1937; Bruyère 1948; Bruyère 1953; Baraize 1914; Bonnet and Valbelle 1975; Bonnet and Valbelle 1976; Coquin and Martin 1991; du Bourguet 1991). The most important building from the Byzantine era is the so-called “Monastery of the City” (where the “City” is probably Djeme), a small Christian building erected on the remains of an older temple dedicated to the goddess Hathor, whose construction dates to the reign of Ptolemy IV Philopator (reign: 222-204 BCE). The sanctuary underwent several changes over time, first in Ptolemaic times and then in Roman times, during which a chapel dedicated to Isis was added to the sanctuary. In the Byzantine period, the temple was converted into a church dedicated, as shown by the inscriptions on the walls, to the worship of St Isidore. The structure, largely made of bricks and well protected - being surrounded by walls dating from the time of the Ptolemaic temple and by watchtowers (Nagel 1929, p. 27) - probably housed a small monastic community, not much larger than that of the topos of St Mark at Qurnet Murai. It was probably a rather self-sufficient community, the members of which carried out specialised work mainly related to weaving, judging by the instructions for measuring clothes engraved on the walls of the ancient temple (Winlock and Crum 1926, p. 9). The importance of weaving for the community can also be intuited by observing the detailed pallium worn by the figure otherwise rather roughly sketched on one of the walls at the entrance of the temple. (du Bourguet 1991, p. 818; Baraize 1914, pp. 23-25). Judging from what remains of the other representations, far from the refinement of some of the ornamental motifs on the pottery from the topos of St. Mark, and from the absence of documentation attesting to other occupations, it does not seem that the members of the community were able to fully participate in the dense network of correspondence and commercial relations that characterised other communities in Western Thebes. Significantly, however, there is a detail that distinguishes the monks of Deir el-Medina from the occupants of the other settlements of the necropolis: the inscriptions and wall representations of the Ptolemaic temple were not eroded or damaged by the members of the community, who only used the empty spaces of the walls of the ancient building, even though it was intended for Christian worship. The figure depicted with a pallium above-mentioned is also characterised by a detail that in some way links the representation to the historical-archaeological context in which it was made. In fact, the sceptre that the figure holds in his hands, ends with a handle that recalls the solar disk surrounded by cow horns typical of Hathoric iconography (Baraize 1914, p. 23). Another analogy with Qurnet Murai is the presence of a cemetery for the small community near the church, in which several bodies of monks were found, characteristically buried wrapped in leather cloaks. Regarding the discovery of texts, the structure of Deir el-Medina has not provided documentation to the extent of that from the topos of St Mark. However, the presence of this small monastic community is indicated above all by the many inscriptions (Heurtel 2004) left on the walls, crosses, and small depictions of animals, although stylistically inferior to the examples at Qurnet Murai.

Ramesseum

Like many other Pharaonic temples on the west bank of the Nile, the monumental sanctuary of Ramses II, better known as Ramesseum, was continuously reused over the centuries, particularly during the Roman and Byzantine periods. One of the most splendid examples of temple architecture in ancient Egypt, it has been the subject of investigations and consolidation work since the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is now studied and excavated by the French mission of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in collaboration with the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). Situated in the centre of the Theban necropolis, in the borderland between the cultivated area to the east and the characteristic limestone terrain to the west, the funerary temple of Ramses II covers in its entirety a considerably large area (220 x 280 m). The importance of the site as a place of worship was maintained throughout the Ramesside period (19th and 20th dynasties). During the Third Intermediate Period (1086-664 BCE), first in the northern section, then in the other parts of the sanctuary, a necropolis for members of the Theban priestly class was installed around the temenos of the Ramesside temple, again testifying to the recognised sacredness of the area. For the Ramesseum, as for Western Thebes in general, the Late Period represented an era of decline and abandonment. It is in this period that the splendid pharaonic temple began to be partially plundered and deprived of stone blocks, reused for other constructions, a practice continued also in the Ptolemaic age (Lecuyot 1999, p. 75; Lecuyot 2014, p. 107). There are very few traces of the frequentation of the area of the Ramesside sanctuary during the Hellenistic period. They are represented by a few inscriptions left by visitors and pilgrims attracted by the fame of the sacred building. Among the travellers who went to Western Thebes in the Ptolemaic age, mention is made of the scholar Hecataeus of Abdera (4th-3rd century BCE), among the sources used by Diodorus Siculus (1st century BCE) for the description - in chapters 46-49 of book I of the Bibliotheca historica - of the famous “tomb of Osimandias”, identified with Ramessesum. (Leblanc 1993-1994; Vandorpe 1995, p. 227). If the evidence of frequentation and reuse of the area at this chronological height is well known (Lecuyot 2012, p. 110), it is less clear whether one should admit the existence of a still active priestly class, which administered the cult inside the temple, or at least in a part of it. In his study on the area of Western Thebes in the Ptolemaic-Roman period, André Bataille denies the existence of an active clergy in the funerary temple of Ramses II, precisely because of the lack of concrete evidence and the fact that, among the wall inscriptions of the Ptolemaic period, there is no trace of devotional formulas addressed to the worshipped deities (Bataille 1951; Bataille 1952). On the contrary, Jan Quaegebeur favours the opinion of the presence of cult activities in the Ramesside temple, because of the evidence provided by Demotic graffiti in Medinet Habu proving the existence of at least two priests of the god Amun-Min, also affiliated to the cult of Amun-Ra, worshipped in Ramesseum (Quaegebeur 1985, p. 468). During the Roman period, except for a few ceramic fragments found in the area of the Ramesseum, there is no evidence of the presence of settlements in the temenos of the sanctuary or in its immediate vicinity (Lecuyot 2014, pp. 99 and 108-109). It was mainly in the Byzantine period that, in a certain sense, the sacredness of the ancient temple was again recognised (Lecuyot 2000; Lecuyot 1999b, pp. 77-80). Although very small in size, a Christian community had to settle within the sacred enclosure of the Ramesside temple during the Byzantine period. Traces of the Christian presence are particularly visible in the northern section of the sanctuary, around the hypostyle hall and the hall of the sacred boats. It is here that ceramic shards, several fragments of capitals, crosses, stelae, and remains of columns were found. Most of the material was reused and came from the same structures that made up the Ramesside sanctuary. A discrete number of graffiti - about three hundred - concentrated in the same area represents further evidence of the reuse of the main section of the temple in the Byzantine period. Most of them (more than two hundred) are simple depictions of crosses, but representations of people on horseback are also attested. As mentioned, the northern part of the temple must have been the nucleus of the small settlement in the Byzantine period. In particular, the chapel of the sacred boats was the most important room of the sanctuary during the Byzantine period. The abundance of graffiti and inscriptions in its interior has led to the assumption that a place of prayer was located there, perhaps a church or, more probably, a chapel or an oratory (Lecuyot 2000, pp. 128-129). Traces of constructions dating back to the Byzantine period, which partly modified the hall to adapt it to the new cult, are clearly visible: these are mainly walls built of unbaked bricks and two connecting passages, which joined the main room (the chapel of the Sacred Boats) to the adjacent structures (the hypostyle room and the litany room). Regarding the textual documentation from the temple and ascribable to the Christian period, a relatively small number of ostraca, mainly documentary, were found at the site (Heurtel 2008). Although few, they nevertheless represent further evidence of the presence of the small Christian community in the temenos of the Ramesside sanctuary and of its links especially with the central part of the necropolis, connected to the Ramesseum by a path.

Hermitages in the area of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna

The central part of the Theban necropolis, between el-Kokha and the village of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, is home to some of the most interesting sites of Western Thebes, both from a historical-archaeological point of view and in terms of the textual documentation they have provided. The area contains dozens of tombs dating back to the Middle and New Kingdom, belonging mainly to members of the sovereign’s entourage (priests, high-ranking soldiers, members of the civil administration, etc.) and their families. Many of them were continually reused as burial sites, often until the Graeco-Roman era, and between the 6th and 8th centuries, many were occupied by small communities of anchorites. They chose them as dwellings, some to live in relative solitude, others sharing the space with a few other companions, and still others creating more substantial and important communities, more organised and self-sufficient. The most interesting settlements are outlined below.

In the western part of the village of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, below the summit of a small hill on the slopes of the vast western Thebes plateau, lies the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA) tomb 1152. The presence of the structure was already pointed out by Winlock and Crum, who noticed some of the outermost constituent elements in the 1910s, while they were engaged in excavation and study of the not-too-distant topos of Epiphanius (Winlock and Crum 1926, pp. 10-11). A very brief note is also provided by Porter and Moss (Porter and Moss 1964, p. 668), but it is since 2003 that the area has been the subject of systematic investigations by the Polish mission of the University of Warsaw (Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology) directed by Tomasz Górecki until 2016 and currently led by Andrzej Ćwiek. The tomb dates back in its original core to the Middle Kingdom, more precisely to the period between the end of the 11th and the beginning of the 12th dynasty and was designed for a military man of particularly high rank, judging by its location, rather close to the unfinished funerary temple of a not yet well identified sovereign (Amenemhat I or one of the last kings of 11th dynasty). The construction of MMA 1152 itself was interrupted for unknown reasons and the owner was never buried in it. Nevertheless, the tomb was not abandoned and was continually reused over the centuries (Rzeuska and Orzechowska 2005; Chudzik 2013), constituting the last resting place - if not of its original owner - of dozens of individuals (Górecki 2014, p. 132) whose remains were found in it. Most of the materials from the Pharaonic period discovered in the tomb are ceramic fragments, vases, ushabti and small amulets, as well as fragments of mummies, wooden coffins and other poorly preserved grave goods (Szpakowska 2007, pp. 275-277).The tomb was occupied again in the Byzantine period by monks, who adapted the old building as a hermitage, building new spaces outside and leaving inside and in the immediate vicinity of the tomb various traces of their presence and of the work they were engaged in (Górecki 2007, p. 186). As far as the dating of this last phase of use of the site is concerned, the archaeological evidence and the analysis of the materials found indicate a chronological span between the second half of the 6th and the second half of the 8th century. The investigations carried out on the site over the years have led to a better understanding of the structure of the tomb, a description of which is given here, especially considering the developments in the Byzantine period (Górecki 2004; Górecki 2005; Górecki 2013; Wipszycka 2009, pp. 190-196). As far as the architecture is concerned, the most evident feature of MMA 1152 is represented by the presence of a mud-brick construction about 6 m high, erected in the centre of the open courtyard, near the entrance of the tomb facing east and with a good view of the necropolis. The tower, originally even higher and in a strategic position, was probably used for defensive and storage purposes, as evidenced by the large number of debris and ceramic fragments found in and around the structure. Not far away, several small constructions leaning against the rock were built - as well as the tower - in the last phase of the site’s use and served purely domestic purposes. One of these small units (D), excavated directly into the rock and adjacent to the entrance of MMA 1152, was identified as the kitchen of the complex due to the presence of three cooking stations and large quantity of ceramic fragments of cooking utensils and amphorae, the latter belonging to the Late Roman Amphora 7 type. Inside the actual tomb, excavated in the rock, a corridor about 19 m long, with an average height of 4.20 m, leads into the burial chamber. Along the way, three rooms (A1, A2 and A3) - separated by mud-brick walls built in the last phase of the site’s use - were discovered and, during the first excavation campaigns of the Polish mission, gradually cleared of the large number of debris that prevented a full view. In the units closest to the main chamber (A2 and A3), low platforms carved into the rock were found, used by the monks as seats and beds, as well as signs of Byzantine-era paving made directly on Pharaonic-era paving. In the period examined here, it was the oldest and most protected part of the tomb that was used as a dwelling by the hermits, who, as mentioned, reserved the outer structures for storing provisions and utensils. Contrary to initial assumptions, further investigations carried out by the Polish mission have shown that the monks used the tomb in its entirety. Thus, they also used the old burial chamber as a dwelling and, in the last phases of the site’s use (around the second half of the 7th century), they separated it from the corridor by building a mud-brick wall and a door (Górecki 2007b, pp. 265-266). In addition to the numerous ceramic fragments from the Byzantine period mentioned above, traces of the presence of the monks in the tomb are particularly evident on the walls of the long corridor. These are mainly simple figures and inscriptions made with red and yellow pigments, among which the representation of a cross above an archway decorated with a guilloché pattern stands out. With regard to the discovery of texts, the tomb MMA 1152 has yielded a fair number of ostraca (Antoniak 2005; Antoniak 2008), most of them ceramic fragments bearing Sahidic Coptic texts, while a smaller amount of limestone shards. As for the dating, they fall well within the chronological range of the last phase of use of the tomb MMA 1152, corresponding to the 6th-8th centuries. They are, however, mainly documentary texts concerning legal and economic matters, with a smaller representation of ostraca with biblical quotations and scholastic exercises. In terms of textual material from the site, the most important discovery made by the Polish team, however, was that of three literary manuscripts in Coptic (CLM 713, 714 and 3469), found in the heap of rubbish and debris concentrated in the area around the tower (Górecki 2007b, pp. 266-272). Regarding the connections between the hermitage of MMA 1152 and other settlements in the Theban necropolis, the presence of an ostracon bearing the name of Frange (Antoniak 2010, pp. 3-4), the occupant of TT 29, is mentioned as evidence of a link between the two sites and their inhabitants. But it is mainly with the nearby MMA 1151 that the tomb MMA 1152 has a close link. Located on the northern side of the hill, a few tens of metres away, it too dates from the beginning of the Middle Kingdom and was designed for a high-ranking official (Górecki 2010; Górecki 2004, p. 179). Structurally, it shares many of the features of MMA 1152, starting with the rock-cut corridor that connects the entrance of the tomb to the burial chamber. Evidence of reuse of the site between the 6th and 8th centuries has also been found within MMA 1151. This mainly consists of remains of flooring and traces of wall paintings with geometric patterns made with red and yellow pigments. However, the tomb yielded a modest quantity of ceramic fragments and tool remains, not comparable to the abundance of such finds in and around the neighbouring MMA 1152. For this reason, and because of the presence of several masonry benches in the inner chamber, the tomb probably had a different use. It must have been a sufficiently secluded place, ideal for prayer, and at the same time close enough to the actual hermitage, inhabited by the monks. The type of connection that united the two tombs, making them a homogeneous complex with precise functions, can be considered a mirror - in a small way - of their location in the Theban necropolis. They were therefore not too close to settlements and, at the same time, not cut off from the paths that connected the different areas and the inhabitants of Western Thebes at this chronological height.

In the centre of the Theban necropolis, in an area occupied by dozens of tombs dating back to the New Kingdom, a small group of structures is particularly interesting. It is a complex of tombs - indicated by the numbers TT 29, 84, 85, 87, 95, 96, 97, 99 and C3 - that Jean Doresse called the “monastery of St. Severus” (Doresse 1949, p. 504; Underwood and Behlmer 2016, pp. 779-781; Winlock and Crum 1926, pp. 15-16). Although all of them have left some evidence of re-use in the Byzantine period, TT 29, 95 and 99 testify the presence and circulation of literary texts inside them. The first of these, TT 29, 116, dates from the New Kingdom and belonged to Amenemope, vizir at the time of Amenhotep II, whose name is also linked to the tomb KV 48, in which he was probably buried. In TT 29, however, several members of Amenhotep’s family were buried, and, over the centuries, the structure was continually reused, at least until the 26th dynasty (7th-6th century BCE). Subsequently, the building lived through centuries of abandonment, until, between the 7th and 8th centuries, it was occupied - like many other ancient tombs in the Theban necropolis - by some anchorites who wished to live their faith in a secluded manner and, at the same time, not completely cut off from the network of contacts and relations that united many hermits in western Thebes. The existence of TT 29 was already known in the first half of the 19th century, when the Scottish explorer Robert Hay visited the area of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna. Again, at the end of the 19th century, it was rediscovered by the English Egyptologist Percy Newberry. The structure, however, was known and studied almost exclusively because of the presence, inside, of one of the few known versions of the “vizir’s duties”, a very important text for the study of the administration during the New Kingdom. It is only since 1999 that the site and the surrounding tombs have been actively studied and excavated by the Belgian mission directed until 2006 by Roland Tefnin of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), later led by Laurent Bavay in collaboration with the Université de Liège (Bavay and Tefnin 2006; Bavay 2010). The structure fits perfectly into the typology of the Theban tombs of the 18th dynasty, having as its main elements a large courtyard, a chapel dug directly into the limestone rock to house the funerary cult, and a series of underground secondary rooms to house the funerary equipment. The tomb is characterised by a T-shaped structure, formed by two main chambers. Of the two, the larger one, 18 m wide, contains a series of pillars, between some of which are connecting passages between the room and the underground chambers. Traces of depictions from the Pharaonic period - most of which are in a poor state of preservation - are visible on the walls of the large room, including the text on the “Duties of the vizir”. In the smaller room, perpendicular to the one mentioned above, better preserved wall paintings were also found, including a banquet scene. As already mentioned, after centuries of abandonment the tomb was occupied again in the Byzantine period, during which several small mud-brick constructions were added to the older structure. In the same period a pit was also placed to house a loom, evidence of one of the works carried out on the site at this chronological height. Further finds related to the daily work of the new inhabitants of the tomb include fragments of leather bindings, baskets, scraps of textiles. The most important discovery made at the site, however, is the archive, consisting of about a thousand ostraca, linked mainly to the name of Frange, the inhabitant of the tomb in the first half of the 8th century. The corpus consists mainly of documentary texts, such as letters and exercises. However, in addition to the numerous quotations - mostly biblical - contained therein, of particular interest are the many references to the copying and binding of manuscripts, as well as their circulation (Boud’hors 2008; Heurtel 2008; Boud’hors and Heurtel 2016). This documentation is of great importance from many points of view, since it gives a clearer idea of the daily life, relationships, and different types of asceticism of the hermits of the Mount of Djeme. Moreover, it represents a valuable corpus for studies in palaeography, toponymy, linguistics, and many other disciplines.

TT 95 dates from the same period as the one just described and belonged to Mery, First Prophet of Amun during the reign of Amenhotep II, and her mother Hunay (Porter and Moss 1960). Like many others, it was continuously reused over the centuries: fragments of mummies and grave goods dating back to the Third Intermediate and Late Periods were found inside. Since 1991, the site has been the subject of several excavation campaigns by the Swiss mission led by Andrea Gnirs of Basel University, as part of the Life Histories of Theban Tombs (LHTT) project carried out in collaboration with the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI) in Cairo. The rather large structure reflects several phases and consists of a rock-cut burial chamber, a large hall with twelve pillars (with almost completely decorated walls) and, in the outer part, an unfinished courtyard. The latter gives access not only to the rock-cut chamber, but also to a second underground burial chamber (95 B) that contained the coffins of some members of the priest’s family. A similar underground structure (95 C) was left unfinished. During the Late Period the tomb was abandoned, probably due to the collapse of a pillar in the great hall and the partial destruction of the roof at the entrance. TT 95 was occupied again between the 6th and 8th centuries. The traces of occupation from this period are of the same kind of those left by the inhabitants of TT 29: a weaving station, fragments of pottery and leather bindings, and inscriptions made in red ink directly on figures from the Pharaonic period. Among these, one is of particular importance, since the first part of the text has been identified with an extract from the Asceticon of Isaiah of Sceti (Underwood and Behlmer 2016, pp. 781-782). In addition, about 226 fragmentary ostraca in Greek and Coptic were found at the site, most of which consisted of letters, accounts, exercises, cryptographs. Few literary texts were found. To a lesser extent, the tomb also yielded papyrus fragments of codices, bearing decorative motifs, page numbers, exercises (Underwood and Behlmer 2016, pp. 782-788; Winlock and Crum 1926, pp. 15-16).

TT 99 is located to the north-east of the two tombs just described. It too dates from the 18th dynasty and belonged to Sennefer, treasurer of Thutmosis III. 125 The site was excavated from 1992 to 2002 by the mission of the University of Cambridge directed by Nigel Strudwick (Strudwick 2016). The general structure of TT 99 is quite similar to that of TT 29 and 95 and falls within the typology of rock-cut tombs of the 18th Dynasty. It consists of a large courtyard, in which three underground passages have been identified. Immediately after the entrance door there is a first chamber, also bearing traces of an underground passage and in which two weaving stations were found. A long corridor connects this first room to the burial chamber, which is larger and is characterised by the presence of several underground passages, excavated in the rock over the centuries to make room for other burials. In fact, there are numerous archaeological evidences of the re-use of TT 99 over time, from the Third Intermediate Period to the Graeco-Roman period. They are mainly represented by fragments of coffins, grave goods, and mummies in a poor state of preservation. As for the Byzantine period (Behlmer 2003), there is no evidence of reuse of the tomb by monks or hermits, as no structures from this period or traces of the work carried out on the site by the new occupants have been found. The little more than one hundred ostraca found, mainly around the courtyard, are in a poor state of preservation. They were probably dumped around TT 99 in the modern period, together with waste material from excavations in the vicinity. Most of them are fragments of documentary texts (letters, exercises, accounts), while three (or maybe five) ostraca contain excerpts of a homily.

In the north-eastern part of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, a group of New Kingdom tombs (e.g. TT-NN-7-, TT-NN-8-, TT 65, TT-NN-24-, TT 66 and TT 67) were reused between the 6th and 8th centuries, forming a laura known as the “Monastery of Cyriacus”. The area, adjacent to the topos of Epiphanius, was first excavated in 1914 by Winlock (Winlock and Crum 1926, pp. 16-18; Porter and Moss 1960, pp. 129-133), who provided a first description of it, together with a plan of the ruins. More recently, since 1995 the site has been excavated and studied by the Hungarian mission of the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest directed by Tamás Bács (Bács 2000; Bács 2009). As already mentioned, the tombs that make up the complex date back to the New Kingdom. The names of the owners of TT-NN-7-, TT-NN-8- (both from the 18th dynasty) and TT-NN24- (unfinished and of uncertain date) are not known. TT 65 originally belonged to Nebamun, court scribe during the reign of Hatshepsut, and was later usurped by Imiseba, chief scribe of the temple of Amun at Karnak at the time of Ramses IX. Hapu, vizir of Thutmosi IV, was the owner of TT 66 while the last tomb in the complex (TT 67) belonged to Hapuseneb, First Prophet of Amun during the reign of Hatshepsut. The precise original structure of the monastery or, rather, of the laura, is not clearly to recreate due to the works that, over the years, have compromised several structures and prevented a correct interpretation of the articulation of the complex. Probably, originally inside the courts of TT 65, TT 66 and TT-NN-24- stood several mud-brick towers, used as dwellings or storage rooms. An older building linked to the name of the vizir of Ramses II, Paser, located in the court between TT-NN-7- and TT-NN-8-, was reused for the same purpose. Traces of the monks’ presence are visible in tomb TT 66, in which there are remains of walls erected in the last phase of use of the area and a bench. A narrow passageway serves as a connection between TT 66 and the courtyard of TT 65, the interior of which has provided further evidence of reuse of the structure in the Byzantine period. This is particularly evident on the walls of the tomb, on which the ancient New Kingdom representations have been partially damaged and “Christianised” by the monks. In addition to the towers, several small constructions related to daily life and work carried out by the monks in the complex have been found: the remains of granaries, ovens for baking bread (between TT-NN-24- and TT-NN-7-), baskets, fragments of amphorae and stations for textile work (Bechtold 2007). Like Deir el-Medina and the topos of Saint Mark, the monastery of Cyriacus also had a small cemetery. In the centre of the courtyard of TT 65 a double burial was identified within a single rectangular pit. Of the two bodies, one was found in a good state of preservation, wrapped in a coarse linen shroud and with a leather cloak on top. The site has yielded some 300 fragments of ostraca and papyri, mainly of a documentary nature. Of these, a small part consists of letters addressed to Cyriacus, whose name was chosen by Winlock and Crum to refer to the laura known as the “monastery of Cyriacus”. Very few, but significant, literary texts, together with fragments of parchment and leather bindings, perhaps testify to the existence of a small library in the monastery.

The topos of Epiphanius

The topos of Epiphanius is situated to the north of the monastery of Cyriacus. The rather large area occupied includes a series of Middle Kingdom tombs (MMA 806, 807, 808 and 810), the most important of which (MMA 807 = TT 103) - constituting the main nucleus of the monastery - belonged to Dagi, a vizir who lived at the end of the 11th dynasty (Porter and Moss 1960, pp. 216-217; de Garis Davies 1884, pp. 28-39). The structure, at the time it was built, must have seemed well suited to the high rank of its owner, being characterised by the presence of a large portico with seven entrances carved directly into the rock. A corridor connected the entrance to an intermediate chamber, beyond which the burial chamber was situated. It was on this main nucleus that, during the Byzantine era, between the second half of the 6th and first half of the 8th century (Dekker 2013, pp. 10-12; Dekker 2016; Thirard 2006), the monks built several other structures, giving rise to a vast settlement of great importance in the landscape of Western Thebes (Winlock and Crum 1926, pp. 25-50; Peel 1991). From the entrance to Dagi’s tomb, the Christian settlement grew considerably. Several small rooms, separated from each other by brick and stone walls, were built in the vestibule of the ancient Middle Kingdom tomb. In the interior of these rooms, benches covered with mud were found, as well as various inscriptions in red ink, including quotations from the Church Fathers. The room identified with number 5 by Winlock and Crum, located near Dagi’s burial chamber, is probably the oldest part of the monastery, as it is here that the hermit Epiphanius may have made his home, as evidenced by the supplications and prayers addressed to him engraved on the walls by pilgrims who visited the site after his death. A little further north, in the Middle Kingdom court, stands the first of the complex’s two towers. It is a particularly imposing and solid construction, about 16 m high and built as a watchtower, but also used by the monks as a dwelling. The second tower, closer to the small cells mentioned above, had the same functions as the first, but it did not reach the same size. To protect this original nucleus, 70 cm thick brick walls were erected, probably in the first half of the 7th century. In the eastern part of the complex, other buildings were added to the previous ones to contain the growing population of monks. However, the walled enclosure did not include all the structures forming part of the monastery’s extensive territory. Three completely independent cells (A, B and C), with their own rooms and workstations, were located to the west of the topos. One of them (A) was connected to the monastery by a path, while the other two were in a more isolated position (C on the south-western border of the settlement territory). The monastery of Epiphanius also had its own cemetery, located north of the first tower. The remains of eleven burials were found inside, probably belonging to distinguished members of the community. However, only five bodies were found, almost all of them wrapped in leather cloaks. As for the work carried out in the monastery, the archaeological findings testify to the variety of occupations typical of other settlements described in these pages: weaving, basket weaving, bookbinding, manuscript copying. As far as textual documentation is concerned, the topos of Epiphanius transmitted a considerable number of fragments of ostraca and papyri in Coptic and Greek, most of them edited by W.E. Crum and H.G. Evelyn White in the second volume (P.Mon.Epiph.) of the publication on the results of the study carried out with H.E. Winlock in the area. Most of them are letters, accounts, lists, but there are also a considerable number of literary texts, mainly biblical quotations, fragments of homilies, liturgical and narrative works.

Deir el-Bakhit

To the east of the Monastery of Phoibammon, in the north-eastern corner of the Theban necropolis, in the area of Dra Abu el Naga, stands another important monastic complex of Western Thebes, i.e. Deir el-Bakhit. This particularly large settlement (Beckh 2016, p. 739), although noted by explorers who frequented the Theban necropolis in the first decades of the 19th century, was never precisely described before Herbert E. Winlock and Walter E. Crum, who took this into account and included a description of the area in their fundamental work devoted primarily to the topos of Epiphanius (Winlock and Crum 1926, pp. 21-22). This report on the characteristics of the site was, in fact, the first and for a long time the only one, at least until the survey carried out by Peter Grossmann (Coquin, Martin and Grossmann 1991) in the 1970s and, above all, the various excavation campaigns carried out in the area by the mission of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in Cairo since 1993, and since 2001 in collaboration with the Ludwig Maximilians-Universität in Munich. Rather than a single monastery, in the case of the settlement situated on the hill of Dra Abu el Naga it is appropriate to speak of a series of monastic units interconnected by several paths, indicated by Winlock and Crum with the numbers XXIV, XXV, XXVI and XXVII (Beckh 2016, pp. 739-747; Polz, Rummel, Eichner and Beckh 2012, pp. 131-134; Wipszycka 2009, pp. 174-178). Due to the poor state of conservation of the structures, a better understanding of the articulation of the complex has only recently begun to emerge. The main nucleus of the monastic community is most likely located near unit XXVI, where the hermit Paul, the founder of the monastery, may have taken up residence, as a graffito found inside the unit and bearing the Coptic text ⲓⲥⲭⲥ ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ seems to testify. A wall depiction of a cross was also discovered at the entrance to the innermost chamber. Little is reported by Winlock and Crum in the description of the core consisting of unit XXVI, in fact a rock-cut tomb, not far from other burials used by the monks as dwellings and places of prayer. What is even more interesting is that - contrary to what the brief description of the two scholars suggests -, the unit whose core is site XXVI reaches a considerable size, about half the size of the actual Deir el-Bakhit. The other neighbouring units, which together with this one just mentioned constitute the monastic complex of the hill of Dra Abu el Naga, also cover a rather large area (Beckh 2016, p. 714), which housed several mud-brick constructions. Nowadays these structures are in a poor state of preservation, largely collapsed already in the early 20th century, when they were studied by Winlock and Crum. However, especially the latest excavation campaigns of the German mission have shed light on the real size of the settlement, whose remains suggest the presence of rather large rooms and connected units over a very large area. In addition to the remains of buildings from the Byzantine period and of the walls that once enclosed the foundation, of particular interest are the traces of weaving stations, like those found at the monastery of Cyriacus, as well as two towers, the presence of which is characteristic of several other sites described in these pages. Also significant is the presence of the refectory, identified during the excavation campaign carried out in 2004. Thanks to the six circular structures found in the room, used by the monks for meals, it was possible to obtain concrete evidence that this was a monastery of coenobitic type. As each of the circular seats could accommodate eleven or twelve monks, it has been estimated that the community accommodated between sixty-six and seventy-two members (Wipszycka 2009, pp. 176-177). As mentioned, the core of the complex is most likely to be identified with unit XXVI, datable to the 5th-6th centuries thanks the study of ceramic remains. The nearby site XXVII, slightly later, was probably used to store the provisions of the small expanding community. Later, following the example of the other monastic settlements on the west bank, some of which are described in these chapters, the area of Dra Abu el Naga also saw the emergence of a full-fledged monastery of coenobitic type, a point of reference for the northern part of the Theban necropolis (Lecuyot deir rumi , p. 97). The site described here, like several of those described in these pages, also had a cemetery, located on a hill to the east of the monastic complex and not yet fully excavated (Lösch, Hower-Tilmann and Zink 2012, pp. 27-41). As for dating, the period of activity of the monastic complex is to be placed between the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 10th century, based on archaeological evidence and the study of texts from this and other sites in western Thebes. Thanks to these, it was possible to identify the monastery of Saint Paul in Deir el-Bakhit (Winlock and Crum 1926, p. 112; Beckh 2016, p. 743), also referred to in documents as the “monastery of the cup” (Beckh 2016, pp. 740-741; Amélineau 1893, pp. 128-129). Many elements suggest the presence of a church, which has not yet been clearly identified. Future excavations in the area will undoubtedly contribute to shedding light on a particularly interesting complex in the panorama of Western Thebes in the Byzantine period. The study of texts from the area, many of which have not yet been published, will also help to better clarify the position of the monastery (in its entirety) in the Theban necropolis, and of the various constituent elements of the monastic complex among them, thanks also to the archaeological documentation. As for the textual documentation, the settlement of Deir el-Bakhit provided a good number of ostraca and papyri, mainly documentary, but also several texts with religious content (Hodak, pp. 723-738). Most of these are unpublished and would deserve an in-depth study, useful also for the identification of many texts, whose content - for the moment - is not better specified. The discovery of various fragments of decorated covers is important, as they are evidence of the circulation and production of literary texts - and perhaps of the presence of a library (Eichner 2015, pp. 241-250).

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Epigraphic documentation

To see/download the list of epigraphic documentation related to Thebes click here