Christian Inscriptions from Egypt and Nubia 2 (2014)

Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 56, 2019

Sixth installment of an annual overview of published inscriptions in Greek and Coptic from Christian Egypt and Nubia.

first installment of an annual overview of published inscriptions in greek and coptic from christian egypt and nubia.

The book we have edited presents thirty six peer-reviewed papers written by scholars involved in the studies on medieval Egypt and Nubia

International Organisation for the Study of the Old Testament, 2022

At the monastery of St Paul, on the Red Sea, two Garshuni inscriptions in West Syriac, one diglot with Arabic, are seen at the conclusion of Arabic hagiographical volumes (Hist. 68 and 70). These inscriptions are selected in this paper for two reasons. One purpose is the provenance and date of the inscriptions, in the eighteenth-century Coptic resurgence, which occasioned the production of liturgy, manuscripts and other cultural practices in Cairene Coptic communities. These texts may be related to the important role of the larger arakhina scribal system and the Archons in the reestablishment of the previously destroyed monastery, after periods of power vacuums in Ottoman Egypt. The monastery itself has a Syrian historical presence, either in pilgrimage or part of a united St. Antony/St. Paul hegoumenos. A working hypothesis is suggested that these manuscripts and material culture and the multi-cultural history of the monastery reflects some of this history. A second purpose is to examine the similarity of the hand and language of these inscriptions. This paper will use the first purpose to situate the inscriptions and hypothesise authorship within a multicultural and postcolonial Coptic experience. Secondly, the paper then conducts a cognitive linguistic study including descriptive linguistic observations on orthography, idiom and grammatical construction. Far beyond Syriac late antiquity and the Syriac Renaissance, material culture of this kind reflects a respect for former works and the survival of minorities of faith over time.

Bibliography for the 'Archaeology 2012-2016' plenary report at the 11th International Congress of Coptic Studies, Claremont, California, USA, 27 July 2016.