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!

TINIS (AKORIS)

Tinis (or Akoris, if you’re Greek) has inspired me to seek out more fieldwork opportunities in Egypt. The site is currently being excavated by a Japanese mission—when I heard those words leave William’s mouth, I did what Page did when she first saw the Valley of the Kings: I squeaked with joy, complete with that hands-covering-mouth motion Page whips out at only the most exciting moments.

Apparently (so says Dr. Bagnall’s book, according to William), the site is home to Old Kingdom tombs and a rock-cut Ptolemaic Temple, as well as some architecture dating to Nero’s time. What we saw appears to be Ancient History Stew: a temple gate with inscriptions that point to a Judeo-Claudian origin, an unfinished room with one capital (bearing Hathor’s head) as its only decoration, a shrine on the second level with high reliefs of Egyptian gods, and a long hall with a series of rectangular doorways and two strange, blocky, roughly crocodile-shaped niches carved opposite each other. The site is a mix of strange architecture and earthquake collapse debris; there is a gated room filled with crocodile carcasses, and in front of each doorway (and elsewhere) are shafts so deep they probably end in China. Foot-wide circular imprints dot the floors of the courtyard. Hilly with the remains of mudbrick architecture, white millstones and pot sherds, Tinis is a mess. I love a good mess.

The Japanese team has found several mummies at Tinis, all of which belong to women. Not only does this tickle my inner necrophiliac, but also my inner sociologist: if the women are in the tombs, are the men in the shafts? Are there crocodiles in those shafts?

The Japanese mission digs each July. I have already looked them up, and am currently composing an email to the director in Japanglish.