ABU MENA, ITS PORT AND A PILGRIMS’ STOP EN ROUTE

Our visit to Abu Mena in the heat and sun was rather exhausting; we toured two additional sites, the port city associated with Abu Mena and a village of temporary lodgings for pilgrims on their way to the main site, for a grand total of about six hours.

We first passed by an enormous Christian town or monastery, which obscured the site from view if you’re traveling on the main road.  The evidence of an ancient site at Abu Mena is hard to find, nestled between mounds of dirt and spiky bushes, covered with semisoft mud under a crispy crust.  We walked around to try and orientate ourselves, finally ending up at the town’s shops, which are now mere shells of limestone and mortar.  It’s hard to imagine these places busy with people, since time has taken away much of their character.

The ground is littered with green glass and pot sherds, and an occasional marble column (very skillfully crafted) crosses the path every now and then.  Coming upon one of the baked-brick bath complexes, I was finally able to figure out what I was looking at—they’re very recognizable by their material, you know.  Arches and cylinders of brick, part of a huge system.

Up ahead, a man with a radio sat on a ledge at the end of a dirt road, looking up at us as we toured.  The praying and singing of the contemporary church, built on the site of the basilica lined with marble statue and pillar bases, made for some nice background music.  As we approached the church, I noticed that this group of Copts prays in the same fashion as Muslims, bowing all the way to the floor with their heads on the ground.  I’m not exactly sure how this tradition fits into the timeline of the Muslims’ evolution of prayer styles, but it was incredibly interesting to watch.

Behind us was the baptistery, set off along with the church from the “secular” market area by the pilgrims’ court.  The court and other spaces are directional, in that they served to guide visitors efficiently from place to place on the holy site.  But they are also entities of separation, as they make a clear divide between the sacred and the secular at Abu Mena.

The second set of baths looked like a small brick maze sitting in a shallow pool of water.  I know that Abu Mena is sinking, but an old water line on the structures (shown by a layer of dry salt deposits) is above the current water level: how this could have happened, I don’t know.  It could be that although Abu Mena is sinking, the water level rises and falls independently of the course towards the ultimate fate of the site.

When we finished exploring Abu Mena, we drove to a pilgrims’ village between the site and its port.  This village had several latrines and many half-standing limestone structures, which we took the time to explore, but the main event was a wine press, restored to a near-usable state (it just needed a little cleaning).

The press is coated in rosy-beige plaster, which encases its baked-brick inner structure.  The stomping room is a short-walled, waterproofed space next to the wine basin (so deep it has steps on the sides).  Two shallow bowls with spouts letting out into the basin were presumably for additives or fermenting agents.

At about this time, it began to get a bit too hot for our liking, so we quickly drove to the port city associated with Abu Mena for a quick look-around.

Abu Mena’s port is covered in medical waste from a nearby plant.  As Asharaff put it, those who dump here are helping the earth by creating these products, while at the same time destroying the earth by depositing them on an open-air site.  In addition to avoiding needles and glass bottles on the ground, we had to step around small mounds of grass for fear of exposing snake dwellings under our feet.

The city had its own baked-brick bath complex, with a large limestone water wheel nearby.  The track an animal working the wheel would have walked on gets too narrow at one point to have functioned properly, so it was probably modified at one point after it ceased being used for its original purpose.  There were also some nice red granite grinding stones, and white limestone structures with thin bands of red brick running through them (in the same manner as the design on the walls of the “school room” at Amheida).

The day came to a rather nice end with a walk down to the end of an ancient pier, whitened from the sun in a pool of clear, shallow lake water.  I would’ve gone swimming if I’d thought to bring a towel.

TAPOSIRIS

We were originally supposed to visit Marina el-Alamein this morning, which I was looking forward to because of the variety of tombs at that site and because the chapel at Tomb 6 was the model for the chapel at Kom el-Shoqafa (the site I presented on yesterday). Unfortunately, we fell victim to the bureaucracy that is the Supreme Council of Antiquities, and required Zahi Hawass’ permission to be on site.

At least we got to spend some time with a herd of wild camels on the side of the road. They had babies!

 

——————————————

Our default plan involved a stop at Taposiris, a strange site that can’t be dated (though William thinks it was in use some time between the first centuries BCE and CE). Taposiris is a mix of many different kinds of architecture, all with strange depressions in the form of cisterns, deep stairways and would-be quarries.

A Greek-style Isis temple complex is enclosed by a temenos wall, which serves as a border for the main part of the site. The restoration team has taken the let’s-not-use-any-original-material track, so the wall is a mix of clean-cut limestone blocks and the weathered, low-quality local limestone blocks that originally stood around the temple. As a whole, the enclosure is relatively small in comparison to those we saw in the Valley. Everything is bunched together, and it’s difficult not to step on foundations as you walk.

At some point during the life of Taposiris, a basilica was erected, followed by the organization of a monastery. The basilica sits directly behind the large, H-shaped pylon of the temple, and is distinguished from earlier building phases by its grey stones and mortar. The outline of the basilica is very clear, and some of the limestone-block pavement still survives. We also found a piece of marble, about the right size and shape to serve as a floor tile; perhaps the whole place was once covered in marble like this.

Next to the basilica is a strange, short room at the end of a long staircase (it ends towards the pylon and the apse of the basilica). It looked like it had been a quarry at some point, judging by marks in the floor and on the walls—but it also had a very high water-line, where the bottom six feet or so of the room was surrounded by very bright white limestone, and the top all weathered and beige. Could it have been filled with water at one point? Was it ever a tomb, based on its strange location and depth?

The water hypothesis may hold some truth, since the whole site is snaked-through by a limestone pipe system. As for whether or not it was a tomb, an open shaft at the side of the room seems to contradict this point—but half-way down the staircase is a closed shaft dug horizontally, which may have been the beginning of a labyrinth tomb like the one at Kom el-Shoqafa.

Several other pits in the area are also confusing. At the back of the enclosure are two chambers, one oval and one rectangular, sunk very deep into the limestone and exposed because the ceilings have weathered away. At the bottom of the rectangular one are three or four limestone benches. One of them has a small, square stone placed at the end, which gives it the illusion of being a bench tomb—I do think this is wishful thinking on my part, since there’s no reason why a tomb like this should exist under a temple.

At the back corner on one side is a strange square-shaped pit, sunken at least 8 meters into the rock. At one side, a short staircase leads to a paved patio of sorts before the drop down. In the center is a tall tower made of limestone blocks, but with no door or other means of getting inside. A small ledge and a scraped-out corner (as in a quarry) are opposite each other in a diagonal axis with the tower. The theme at Taposiris seems to be re-use, albeit for unknown purposes and in a very cramped space.

Although we were fortunate enough to have been led around by a man I assume is the excavation director (he’s Egyptian, which is interesting because I thought the team working at Taposiris was Hungarian or Polish based on hearsay), we still weren’t able to deduce much more than the forms of the buildings lain before us in ruins. And although we went to the top of the tower which was once a ritual tomb for Osiris to get a better view of the place, the rest of the site looked rather barren below us.

It was odd not to see the Nile (but instead the Mediterranean Sea) as we entered Alexandria. The city has much more of an Egyptian feel than I had imagined; no Greek-themed restaurants, no European cafes. Every woman I saw in the market wore a hijab, indicating that the Coptic population (if there is one at all) is quite small. I was expecting to see the same Ottoman-Greek mix in the architecture that I saw on Cyprus last year, but I have yet to find it. I guess I was imagining the Alexandria of the past.

THE MONASTERY OF SAINT ANTONY

The Monastery of Saint Antony is a gated space composed of light limestone architecture and bright glass mosaics.  Trees are scattered from place to place, and the surrounding natural hills where Antony once lived as a hermit serve as a lovely backdrop.

Father Maximus invited us into his living quarters, where we sat in a long room with white walls covered in matte prints of the paintings in the Church of Saint Antony.  Décor in this space includes an incense holder, which adds a sacred flair to an otherwise secular space.  Mirrors and crosses of various sizes and materials fill in the blank spaces on the walls.

This is the space where the conservators working on the Church of Saint Antony stayed during their project, and on one of the coffee tables in the sitting room is the book that resulted from the conservation work, which I also saw for sale at Deir el-Medina (I thumbed through it, but decided not to buy it and regret that at this moment).  We passed the book around while we sipped tea from cups printed with the Monastery’s name.  (Cliché?  The commercialization of sacred space?)

Father Maximus himself is quite a character: tall, soft-spoken yet assertive, and dressed rather casually for a Man of the Church (in loafers and with his sleeves rolled up).  He has a very dry sense of humor and the tendency to slip a joke in here and there in a small voice during serious conversations.  He gave us a tour of the major spaces at the Monastery, including a room with two mills, the Church of the Apostles and the Church of Saint Antony.

What I liked most about our tour was the honesty, interest and grateful attitude expressed by Father Maximus concerning restoration and archaeology inside the Church of the Apostles.  Firstly, I must note that the glass floor placed over the recently-uncovered remains of 4th-century structures is a great way to allow visitors insight into the layering effect created by construction-over-construction.  Archaeology is the uncovering of these layers, and the exposure of older ones in a church functioning in the present offers an interesting look at how science and religion can function successfully as coexisting institutions.  But my main point here is that Father Maximus is so involved in the project at this Church that he knows enough to guide a group of archaeology students around the place; not only is he accepting of the need for preservation via archaeology at Saint Antony’s—he’s also enthusiastic about it.

Father Maximus told us that when the project is finished, the glass floor will be covered by a carpet during services.  The carpet will be removed at all other times, so that visitors may take advantage of the dual function of the space (display and ritual) at different times.

I feel like I might get carried away in describing the paintings in the Church of Saint Antony if I allow myself to write about it for too long; so instead, I’ll make some very simple statements about what I gathered from our visit there today:

• The paint is remarkably well-preserved, or at least has the appearance of having been well-preserved thanks to the Italian team I’ve spoken about in several other entries.  The use of “dirty water” to camouflage areas of missing paint within the larger scheme of the painting works as well here as it does in the Red Monastery and elsewhere.
• The painting of Mary and the infant Jesus on the far left as you walk through the nave towards the apse is missing the IC XC I expected to find there.  All of the other figures are labeled—why not this one?
• I was able to identify several of the equestrian martyrs and other saints when inside the church from the images I saw in the book before our tour!  Exciting!
• The graffiti on the walls (in 9 languages, according to Father Maximus,) provides a striking example of the craftsmanship of the writings of those visiting the Monastery; some of the inscriptions are so well-executed that they fit right in with the rest of the décor!
• There is a very funny painting (which I’m sure wasn’t intended to be funny at the time) of a Jew stealing furniture from the church.  I say that it’s funny because I want to look at the anti-Semitism of yore with a lighthearted attitude, something everyone else seemed to agree with.  Adam took a picture of this painting as a souvenir.
• The paintings in the space right before the apse (“horos”) are in a style comparable to those found in Cyprus (they’re very Byzantine); William noted that the artist who executed these works may actually have been trained there.
• There’s a lot of red in this church (the rugs, the paint…): is red symbolic of martyrdom, sacrifice or religious fervor in the Coptic church?

What a day.  I really wish I could recap it all, but I’d be here all day describing the direction Saint George’s eyes are facing and the patterns on the robes of the martyrs.  Let’s save that for when I’m a church-art analyst!

OLD CAIRO

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I love churches. That’s why our trip to Old Cairo today was such a treat; we explored an entire neighborhood of places of worship, which were fascinating despite their current state of 19^th-century style and restoration.

Our day began in the small backyard garden of a local café, where we sipped extra-pricey tea as William explained the origins of some of the buildings in the area. The Fortress of Bablyon, the beginnings of which were constructed during the reign of Trajan (wow, that’s old), encloses our wandering vicinity. It was originally constructed right on the bank of the Nile, but shifts westward by the ground have left it about 300 meters away from its original location at present. The neighborhood inside the fortress became a Christian and Jewish ghetto surrounded by a Muslim city after the Arab conquest. On one side of the fortress walls are two large towers, from which one of the only bridges across the Nile (through Rawdah Island) was once controlled. Today, the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint George sits on top of the remains of one tower, while part of the other serves as a pedastil for the Church of the Virgin, or the Suspended Church (Muwalakka in Arabic).

The area outside of the Church of the Virgin, between the two towers at the site of the Coptic Museum, looks like a gated community. The facade of the church sports small windows with pointed arches and little balconies too small for use. Walking inside, I scanned the rows of poster-size photographs of past Coptic popes; among them was a frightening image of a deceased monk, split-frame with another image of his decaying corpse years later. I made a note of this, since it relates directly to my major thesis topic (the exhibition of the dead for institutionalized or ritual purposes), and continued down the hallway.

A lovely open court with bright beige walls and dark wooden fixtures serves as an anteroom for the chapel itself. It reminded me a lot of the atrium at the Frick Museum in New York, one of my favorite places to read and study. A lintel made of Ottoman-Period tiles and dark wood hangs over the door to the chapel. A test-cleaning done by the same Italian team working at the Red Monastery and elsewhere left two bright strips on a column beside the door; William explained that the Italian team was simply too expensive for the church to hire, “a mistake”.

When I entered, I could smell the familiar scent of church incense (my best friend is Greek Orthodox). The gallery is lined with pointed arches and is supported by late-antique columns, while on the ground floor are 12th-century wooden screen walls in cookie-cutter patterns and matte walls decorated with 18th-century icons. A strange podium of sorts sits in the center of the sanctuary, much like those I saw in the churches of Cyprus last summer. The roof tyle is “wagon-vaulted,” according to William, symbolic of Noah’s ark. In the second room, the window cut in the chancel wall (or hiekel wall), originally used to view an icon or statue (like at Gebel el-Tayr), allows visitors to examine a newly-discovered 13th- or 14th-century painting. Elaborate wood and ivory carvings and inlays adorn the chancel wall. Beneath the second room is the substructure of the original Roman tower, which visitors can view through a glass panel in the floor, lined with a light wooden balcony. Before I left, I picked up a photograph of that dead monk poster at the gift shop. Thus starts my thesis-driven collection of dead-people pictures!

What I really loved about the Church of the Virgin was the montage of different eras inside and out. It was such a great mix, really showing the evolution of church artistic and architectural styles. I was also pleased with how many connections I was able to make between this church and those I have visited before. It really feels like I’m building up my churchy-knowledge repertoire!

We exited the church and headed down the block, where we walked down a small staircase to a narrow ally paved with stone. The ally was dotted with churches, and the walls showed pockets of exposed brickface, the blank spaces between filled with peddlers’ merchandise. Adam and I met a (presumably Jewish) merchant who spoke perfect Hebrew. He handed us pamphlets on the restoration of Ben Ezra Synagogue, which we would see later on.

After a nice chat with our new friend, we entered the Church of Abu-Serga, the oldest in the area. The chapel felt much more open than that of the Church of the Virgin, with alternating pitched and domed wooden roofs. Pink garlands hung from the chancel wall, which had the same kind of ivory and wood inlays, as well as carvings of saints, as the last church (an element of 12th- and 13th-century style). The same strange podium sat in the middle of the sanctuary.

The same Italian team I mentioned previously recently uncovered a 13th-century painting of Christ in Majesty in the chapel, painted by the same artist who worked at the Monastery of Saint Anthony in the Eastern Desert: this means that the artist had wealthy and driven patrons, since he was able to travel so far to work on these great pieces.

This church sits above a crypt where the Holy Family is said to have lived at some point. We were able to enter the room with the staircase down into the crypt, where I saw many frustrated worshipers sigh at the throngs of tourists in their house of prayer. I really wish we could have gone to these churches at a time when local Copts were not expected to pray, because I hate being an invasive tourist.

Speaking of not wanting to be disruptive to prayer services, our next stop was an inactive house of worship. Ben Ezra Synagogue, probably the only one we’ll see with this program, no longer has an Eternal Light above its altar (which means it hasn’t been in use for some time). Beautiful columns and statues that look marble–but are really cast-iron–have gold inlays of the Ten Commandments and other religious motifs. Ben Ezra is the site where the Geniza Documents, 11th- to 19th-century records of everyday life, were found in the 1890s. I was expecting pointed arches in the style of churches in the area, but instead found rounded arches and a golden-red and blue ceiling.

The layout of the synagogue is very different from what I’m used to: usually, pews for men are in front of the bima, the women’s pews behind them, separated by a screen. Here the sanctuary is lined with black benches, which means that the men probably prayed on the ground floor, facing the center of the building, and the women in the galleries. This is much like the old style of the Coptic Church, which clearly influenced Jewish practices in the area. On my way out, I gave some money to the cemetery-preservation fund. Unfortunately, we were unable to visit the cemetery.

Our last stop was the Mosque of ‘Amr, the oldest mosque on record (built in 641). It started very small, but was expanded 5 times in 200 years (until about 820), using basilica-style construction turned 90 degrees (everything looks very flat and horizontal, with aisles of worshipers facing inward in a square towards the center space). Because it is a “Friday mosque” where everyone prays together, it grew with the population. The Muslim community grew with the conversion of Christians after a failed rebellion over taxes during the ninth century (likely including Asharaff’s family, according to William). Most of what we saw dates to the latest expansion and update, in about 1980.

The women had to wear these absurd neon-green cloaks, which I felt were less for modesty and more for outcasting because of their color (I’m not being cynical; just honest). We sat on a red carpet floor in the huge, open space lined with classical columns and supported by wooden beams while William lectured a little on Islam.

Woven into the carpet were the outlines of prayer mats, so as to arrange worshipers in neat rows. I was fortunate enough to experience my first realtime Muslim prayer service, where I saw men of all ages following the vocal cues of the voice on the speaker. Their prayer is more of a performance than I expected, and included many acute yet symbolic motions that were intriguing for a nice Jewish girl (like touching one’s hands to his ears in a swift, light movement before kneeling to pray). I think a lot of the assumptions I made about Muslim prayer rituals based on hearing their services as opposed to seeing them were turned on their heads today. I’m really glad we got to sit in on the service, and I hope they enjoyed our company.

Alright, I have to leave this coffee shop. They have the same CD on repeat, and I’ve heard When a Man Loves a Woman and My Heart Will Go On eight times already!

GEBEL EL-TAYR: CHURCH OF THE VIRGIN

One thing you might not expect to hear from a nice Jewish girl is this: I love churches. Church architecture, church art, church music. Really, I’ve considered a Christian Studies minor.

Unfortunately, the mythical (or semi-mythical) history of the Church of the Virgin is far more exciting than the structure itself, though the lintel above the door to the sanctuary is carved with beautiful reliefs of floral and abstract motifs.

Save that, the church looked as one would expect a “3rd-century” building to appear: very plain, with simple, white domed ceilings and red carpet. Much of the structure is rock-cut, including a small niche purported to be the temporary home of the Holy Family on the occasion their stay Egypt during the Massacre of the Innocents (there’s even a map showing their route on the outer wall of the chancel). A beautiful mosaic, which I would say probably dates to the 19th century, hangs on the wall of an auxiliary prayer room. Remnants of painted saints’ heads fade into the plaster on a long wall in the sanctuary. Oil and dirt from the hands of pilgrims and local worshipers coats both sides of the entrance.

There is no foreseeable way to date the church, but I am rather skeptical that it was built by Saint Helena. In any case, the small part of the town of Gebel el-Tayr we were able to see before entering the church offered a nice treat. It is one of few Coptic areas we’ve driven through or visited, with bright yellow houses and a lovely fenced overlook to a row of farms and the Nile.