EGYPTIAN CULTUR E AND SO C I E TY EGYPTIAN CULTUR E AND SO C I E TY S TUDI es IN HONOUR OF NAGUIB KANAWATI SUPPLÉMENT AUX ANNALES DU SERVICE DES ANTIQUITÉS DE L'ÉGYPTE CAHIER NO 38 VOLUM E I Preface by ZAHI HAWA ss Edited by AL E XANDRA WOOD S ANN MCFARLAN E SU S ANN E BIND E R PUBLICATIONS DU CONSEIL SUPRÊME DES ANTIQUITÉS DE L'ÉGYPTE Graphic Designer: Anna-Latifa Mourad. Director of Printing: Amal Safwat. Front Cover: Tomb of Remni. Opposite: Saqqara season, 2005. Photos: Effy Alexakis. (CASAE 38) 2010 © Conseil Suprême des Antiquités de l'Égypte All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or other- wise, without the prior written permission of the publisher Dar al Kuttub Registration No. 2874/2010 ISBN: 978-977-479-845-6 IMPRIMERIE DU CONSEIL SUPRÊME DES ANTIQUITÉS The abbreviations employed in this work follow those in B. Mathieu, Abréviations des périodiques et collections en usage à l'IFAO (4th ed., Cairo, 2003) and G. Müller, H. Balz and G. Krause (eds), Theologische Realenzyklopädie, vol 26: S. M. Schwertner, Abkürzungsverzeichnis (2nd ed., Berlin - New York, 1994). Presented to NAGUIB KANAWati AM FAHA Professor, Macquarie University, Sydney Member of the Order of Australia Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities by his Colleagues, Friends, and Students CONT E NT S VOLUM E I PR E FA ce ZAHI HAWASS xiii AC KNOWL E DG E M E NT S xv NAGUIB KANAWATI : A LIF E IN EGYPTOLOGY xvii ANN MCFARLANE NAGUIB KANAWATI : A BIBLIOGRAPHY xxvii SUSANNE BINDER , The Title 'Scribe of the Offering Table': Some Observations 1 GILLIAN BOWEN , The Spread of Christianity in Egypt: Archaeological Evidence 15 from Dakhleh and Kharga Oases EDWARD BROVARSKI , The Hare and Oryx Nomes in the First Intermediate 31 Period and Early Middle Kingdom VIVIENNE G. CALLENDER , Writings of the Word Hathor from Akhmim 87 MALCOLM CHOAT , Athanasius, Pachomius, and the 'Letter on Charity and 97 Temperance' ROSALIE DAVID , Cardiovascular Disease and Diet in Ancient Egypt 105 LINDA EVANS , Otter or Mongoose? Chewing over the Evidence in Wall Scenes 119 RO B YN GILLAM , From Meir to Quseir el-Amarna and Back Again: The Cusite 131 Nome in SAT and on the Ground SAID G. GOHARY , The Cult-Chapel of the Fortress Commander Huynefer at 159 Saqqara MICHELLE HAMPSON , 'Experimenting with the New': Innovative Figure Types 165 and Minor Features in Old Kingdom Workshop Scenes ix ZAHI HAWASS , The Anubieion 181 TOM HILLARD , The God Abandons Antony: Alexandrian Street Theatre in 30B C 201 COLIN A. HOPE AND OLA F E. KAPER , A Governor of Dakhleh Oasis in the 219 Early Middle Kingdom JANA JONES , Some Observations on the Dimensions of Textiles in the Old 247 Kingdom Linen Lists EDWIN A. JUDGE , The Puzzle of Christian Presence in Egypt before 263 Constantine LESLEY J. KINNEY , Defining the Position of Dancers within Performance 279 Institutions in the Old Kingdom AUDRAN LA B ROUSSE , Huit épouses du roi Pépy Ier 297 VOLUM E II MIRAL LASHIEN , The Transportation of Funerary Furniture in Old Kingdom 1 Tomb Scenes LISE MANNICHE , The Cultic Significance of the Sistrum in the Amarna 13 Period KIM MCCORQUODALE , 'Hand in Hand': Reliefs in the Chapel of Mereruka 27 and other Old Kingdom Tombs RO B ERT S. MERRILLEES , Two Unusual Late Cypriote Bronze Age Juglets from 35 Egypt in Western Australia and Tatarstan JUAN CARLOS MORENO GARCÍA , La gestion des aires marginales: pHw, gs, Tnw, sxt 49 au IIIe millénaire KAROL MYśLIWIEC , The Mysterious Mereris, Sons of Ny-ankh-nefertem 71 (Sixth Dynasty, Saqqara) ALANNA NO bb S , Phileas, Bishop of Thmouis 93 x BOYO G. OCKINGA , The Memphite Theology - Its Purpose and Date 99 MAARTEN J. RAVEN , A New Statue of an Old Kingdom Vizier from Saqqara 119 GAY RO B INS , Space and Movement in Pre-Amarna Eighteenth Dynasty 129 Theban Tomb Chapels ASHRA F -ALEXANDRE SADEK , Trois pièces de la Collection Égyptienne du 143 Musée des Beaux-Arts de Limoges RAMADAN EL-SAYED , À propos de sept scarabées au Musée du Caire 151 MICHAEL SCHULT Z , The Biography of the Wife of Kahai: A Biological 163 Reconstruction SAMEH SHA F IK , Disloyalty and Punishment: The Case of Ishfu at Saqqara 181 BASIM SAMIR EL-SHARKAWY , Sobek at Memphis, Once Again: 191 Further Documents KENNETH A. SHEEDY , Scenes from Alexandria in the Time of Domitian 205 KARIN N. SOWADA , Forgotten Cemetery F at Abydos and Burial Practices of the 219 Late Old Kingdom JOYCE SWINTON , De-Coding Old Kingdom Wall Scenes: Force-Feeding the Hyena 233 ELI Z A B ETH THOMPSON , Scenes of the Tomb Owner Journeying-by-Water: The 247 Motif in Tombs of the Old Kingdom Cemetery of El-Hawawish MIROSLAV VERNER , MIROSLAV BÁRTA AND ZDENKA Sů v o v á , The Second Renaissance 267 of Abusir SOPHIE WINLAW , The Chapel Types Utilised in the Teti Cemetery at Saqqara 281 ALEXANDRA WOODS , A Date for the Tomb of Seneb at Giza: Revisited 301 xi THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY IN EGYPT: ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FROM DAKHLEH AND KHARGA OASES Gillian Bowen Centre for Archaeology and Ancient History Monash University The pace of conversion to Christianity in Egypt is a controversial topic with some scholars arguing that by the end of the fourth century about eighty per cent of the population professed Christianity and the others maintaining that the religion did not make significant inroads until the fifth century. This article argues that archaeological evidence for well- established Christian communities in Kharga and Dakhleh Oases in the early fourth century can perhaps be used as a case study for the remainder of the Nile Valley. It concludes that the evidence from the oases supports the argument for a rapid conversion. It gives me great pleasure to offer this article as a token of gratitude to Naguib Kanawati for his constant support for the teaching of Egyptology at Monash University. Scholarship is divided regarding the rapidity with which Christianity spread throughout Egypt. One school of thought argues for a significant rate of conversion, with one scholar suggesting that by the end of the fourth century eighty per cent of the population professed Christianity; the other school maintains that it was a prolonged conversion and that the new religion only made significant inroads in the fifth century.1 Evidence from Dakhleh and Kharga Oases has perhaps swung the pendulum in favour of the former. This paper considers the archaeological evidence from the oases upon which this premise is based and the validity of proposing an early date for the spread of Christianity in Egypt. Christianity remained an illegal religion throughout the Roman Empire until Constantine the Great introduced the Edict of Milan in 313, which gave religious tolerance to all. The illegality of the religion, however, did not prevent it taking hold in Alexandria, where a church and catechetical school are attested circa 190 by which time the See of Alexandria was second only to that of Rome. Alexandria soon produced such notable scholars as the Church Fathers Clement and Origen.2 The spread of Christianity into the Egyptian countryside during the second century is less well documented. What little literary evidence is available comes from Eusebius, who wrote his Ecclesiastical History under Constantine the Great, and Epiphanius of Salamis, writing in the latter half of the fourth century. These late 15 GILLIAN BOWEN sources name two Gnostic Christian teachers who were active in the Delta region during the reign of Hadrian (117–138). Eusebius claims that Basilides of Alexandria 'established schools of impious heresy … in Egypt', and Epiphanius adds that the teacher was active within the nomes of Propontis, Athribis and the areas around Sais.3 Basilides' contemporary was Valentinus who, according to Epiphanius, spread his doctrine in the same nomes but also took his message into the Thebaid.4 Eusebius also preserves letters of Dionysius, who was bishop of Alexandria from 247 to circa 264. Dionysius made direct reference to four Christian communities in Egypt: one in the Arsinoite nome, and the others were in either the Delta or the Fayum, but their precise location is unclear.5 Another source for charting the spread of the religion in the first four centuries is the papyrological evidence. This falls into two categories: literary and documentary. The former comprises biblical and other religious texts; the latter includes a diversity of texts ranging from contracts, wills, tax receipts, and the like, to personal letters, which might contain evidence of a Christian authorship such as names or clerical titles. The problems inherent in attempting to locate Christian communities using literary texts are two-fold: many were either purchased on the antiquities market or were excavated from rubbish dumps in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, with the result that they lack a secure context. The second problem is that they can only be dated on palaeographic grounds, which can do little more than place the fragments within a particular century at best. For undated documentary papyri, scholars are similarly reliant upon a palaeographic assessment. Macquarie University has produced a data base of early Christian papyri, which has in excess of four-hundred entries that range in date from the second to the fourth centuries.6 Of these, sixteen fragments belong to the second century but only ten have a known provenance; they derive from Oxyrhynchus, the Arsinoite nome and Karanis in the Fayum. One-hundred-and-sixty can be dated to the third century but around one-third lack a provenance; sites represented include various towns in the Fayum, Oxyrhynchus, Antinoöpolis, Hermopolis Magna and Thebes.