SSCN Voumes 1-10, 1994-2004

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

importance. It is worthy of mention that Dr. Richter is one of the leading figures in this branch of Coptic Studies. The Society was very gratified also for his acknowledgment of volume 2 of Coptica for its publication of the papers of the Wadi al-Natrun Symposium. The second paper was by Prof. Griggs, titled, The Excavations of BYU at al-Fayoum: the Christian Burials . His paper dealt with the excavation of a necropolis at the eastern edge of al-Fayoum, that Utah's Brigham Young University (BYU) has been conducting for nearly two decades, as he mentioned in the later field trip made to that site. The area in question covered approximately 300 acres and functioned as a necropolis from pharaonic times to approximately 5 th Century. It seems that the site was excavated earlier in the last century by Grenfell and Hunt, though based on their excavation publication, the scope of their work was uncertain. This excavation was able to find evidence of this past work, which was described here as superficial at best and treasure hunting at worst. In his description of the site and the excavated tombs and burial chambers, two astounding finds were made. The first was the radical change in the orientation of the corpses, starting as early as the 2 nd Century. From Pharoanic times to that time the corps were oriented with the head pointing to the east and the feet to the west. A 180-degree rotation of the body consistently occurred in corpses buried from the that time onward. In other words, the head pointed to the west and the feet to the east. This would mean that the corpses when raised would have its face looking toward the East, a typical Christian way of burial. It was further mentioned that one of the 2 nd century mummies had an ornamental cross around her neck. Also alongside these corpses, cups were found, which are possible evidence that a communion service may have been conducted at the site. This archeological evidence, would make the origin of Christianity in the area about a century earlier than the known literary evidence!

and each paper was allocated a 20-minute presentation time. Discussions of the presentations of each session were scheduled at the end of that session. The following are brief remarks on these papers. Personal comments by this writer are marked in a smaller italic script: Session One, February 7, 2004; Chairman: Prof. Dr. Stephen Emmel. There were three papers presented during this session. The first by Dr. Richter, titled, The Importance of al-Fayoum for Coptic Studies . It was a plenary-type paper, dealing in broad terms with the area of al-Fayoum and how it made its mark on Coptic Studies. He began by giving geological information about the area. He then described its settlement starting in the Middle Kingdom, referencing the work by Carl Wessely and the publications done on Karanis and Oxyrhynchus. He mentioned the famous Fayoum portraits or mummy portraits, and quoted the late Prof. Paul van Moorsel on the subject. He then turned his focus to early Christianity in area, which is known to us from the early 3 rd Century on the basis of written sources. He mentioned that monasticism began there in the 2 nd half of the 3 rd Century and that St. Antony's visited there in AD 305. Isidore of Karanis is credited with the first written use of the word 'monachos'. He then described the places of surviving monasticism in the area: Naqlun and Kalamun. In the field of literature, he mentioned that manuscripts from the region were not as dismembered among libraries as those of Wadi al- Natrun. In this respect he mentioned that the contents of the library of Archangel Michael in Hamuli were mainly preserved in the renowned New York library of Pierpont Morgan. He also dealt briefly with the Coptic Dialect of the region, Fayumic. He made mention of two of the subdialects that Prof. Kasser has identified, F4, and F5. The latter is regarded as the classical literary Fayumic. Among the significant biblical manuscripts found were those fragments of Coptic Gospels in Fayumic. He concluded his paper with a brief overview of the famous manuscript find of Madinat Madi, the Manichaen texts, and their

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

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