Thursday Lecture: Ralph Bodenstein
Wann: Do, 16.05.2024, 16:15 Uhr bis 18:00 Uhr
Wo: Warburgstraße 26, 20354 Hamburg
Medieval Arabic Graffiti in a Coptic Monastery
Tracing Muslim and Christian Visitors in Dayr Anba Hadra (Aswan)
Ralph Bodenstein (German Archaeological Institute Kairo)
Since 2014, a multidisciplinary research project is being conducted at the Monastery of Anba Hadra (better known as the Monastery of St. Simeon) on the west bank of the Nile at Aswan in Upper Egypt. In a cooperation between the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, the Free University Berlin, and the University of Bamberg, a team of epigraphers, archaeologists, building historians, art historians, and restorers has been working to document and study the impressive remains of this long-abandoned monastic complex in an attempt to reconstruct its history based on material evidence. The findings have put into question established narratives and brought to light new aspects regarding the history of the monastery—starting from its somewhat obscure beginnings in Late Antiquity, over its heydays in the Early Islamic Period, the elusive fading-out of monastic functions sometime in the Mamluk period, to its changing function as a destination for visitors—both Christian and Muslim—over the centuries.
As written historical sources are frustratingly scarce and vague, one central source for tracing Dayr Anba Hadra's history is the rich corpus of secondary inscriptions—both Coptic and Arabic—preserved on the fragile mud plaster of the monastery walls. Especially striking is the high number of Arabic visitor inscriptions, ranging from Kufi graffiti from the 10th century, to Ayyubid- and Mamluk-period inscriptions left by Muslims who for some reason seem to have made station at the monastery, to fine ink inscriptions left by Christians and Muslims of the same period who were visiting the monastery in veneration of the site and the saint. This lecture will introduce Dayr Anba Hadra, present selected types and groups of inscriptions, and discuss them with special regard to what they can tell us about the monastery, its building history and functional changes, its puzzling variety of visitors, and the new questions they raise.