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Matthew Martin Observations on the Paintings of the Exodus Chape), Bagawat Necropolis, Kharga Oasis, Egypt The Bagawat necropolis sits on the southernmost slopes of the Gebel El-Teir, north of the ancient town of Hibis, the capital of the Great Oasis in antiquity. Extending some 500 m. north-south and about 200 m. east-west, the necropolis appears pre-Christian in origin, the earliest excavated burials showing no evidence of Christian presence. 1 Of the more than 260 mud-brick funerary chapels [Fig. 13]2 dating from the late third/early fourth to about the eighth century CE, 3 the Exodus Chapel is one of only two with surviving extensive decorative schemes of Christian painting. Western explorers have commented on the necropolis since the early nineteenth century. 4 Between 1907 and 1932, the Egyptian Expedition of the Metropolitan Museum of New York conducted sporadic investigations, excavating a few burials, but the findings still await proper publication. 5 More complete is Ahmed Fakhry's The Necropolis of El-Bagawat in Kharga Oasis, published by the Egyptian Antiquities Service in 1951, but it is selective in its use and treatment of the surviving material. Visits in each of the last seven years have revealed serious and irreversible deterioration. Comprehensive, detailed publication, incorporating French scholarship on the extensive epigraphic material and proper study of the materials excavated by the Metropolitan Museum, is now imperative. 6 The type of the Bagawat necropolis, with its funerary chapels arranged into 'streets', is known from Roman and Byzantine ltaly and best exemplified, 1. W. Hauser, ·The Christian Necropolis in the Khargeh Oasis' BA/MA 27 ( 1932) March Sect. 2:50. The continued prescnce of pagan burials alongside Christian interments is evidenced in Egypt up until the Arab conquest in the seventh century CE. See R. Rémondon, ·L'Égypte et la suprême résistance au christianisme (Ve-Vlle siècles)' BIFA051 (1952)63-78. 2. A. Fakhry, The Necropolis of el-Bagawat in Kharga Oasis (Caïro 1951) 9. 3. Fakhry, Necropolis 2; Hauser, 'Khargeh' 50; P. Grossmann, ·Bagawat, Al-. Location and Architecture' The Captie Encyclopedia ed. A.S. Atiya (8 vols New York 1991) 1:326-7. 4. For the early European bibliography on the necropolis sce H. Stern, ·Les peintures du mausolée ··de l'Exode" à EI-Bagaouat' CahArch 11 ( 1960) 93 n. 3; M.L. Thérel, ·La composition et Ie symbolisme de l'iconographic du mausolée de l'Exode à el­ Bagawat' RACr 45 ( 1969) 223- 70 at n. 6. 5. A.M. Lythgoe, 'The Egyptian Expedition' BA4AIA 3 (1908) 84-6; 'The Oasis of Kharga' BMMA 3 (1908) 203-8: C.K. Wilkinson, ·Early Christian Paintings in the Oasis ofKhargeh' BMMA 23 ( 1928) Dec. Sect. 2:29-36; Hauser, 'Khargeh'. 6. Greek inscriptions: G. Wagner, les oasis d 'É'gypte à /'époque grecque, romaine et byzantine d'après les documents Grecs (Caïro 1987). Coptic inscriptions: G. Roquet, ·Les graffites coptes de Bagawat (Oasis de Kharga): Remarques préliminaires' BSFE 76 (1976) 25-49. Byzantine Narrative. Papers in Honour of Roger Scott. Edited by J. Burke et al. (Melbourne 2006). 234 Matthew Martin perhaps, by the lsola Sacra cemetery at Portus Augusti north of Ostia. 7 The chapels, some of which still possess semi-circular klinai employed for the cenae funebres, evidence a range oftloor plans, although the common basic plan is that of a domed tetrapylon with the side openings filled in [Fig. 14]. 8 The wide variety of exterior architectural decoration includes engaged columns, blind arcades and ornamental niches [Fig. 15]. 9 The burials are in shallow rectangular graves around the mud-brick chapels or beneath them, sometimes in multiple chambers, in subterranean hypogea accessed via vertical shafts. 10 Fakhry lists twenty two chapels with painted decoration but only seven contain figurative art, the others evidencing just painted crosses or the like. 11 Only two possess extensive decorative schemes: chapels no. 30 and no. 80, known as the Exodus Chape/ [Fig. 16] and the Chape/ of Peace, respectively. The Chape! of Peace This chapel derives its name from one of three allegorical figures - EYXH, t:.IKAIOIYNH and EIPHNH - which, along with representations of Daniel, Jacob, Noah, Mary, Paul, Thekla, Eve, Adam, Sarah, Isaac and Abraham, occupy a single register of painted images, all identified by Copto-Greek inscriptions, encircling the domed ceiling [Fig. 17]. The allegorical figures connect the paintings with the sophisticated, urban artistic style of Alexandria. 12 Their rather statie contrapposto stance recalls the early Ptolemaic hemicycle of Greek poets and philosophers near the Serapieion at Saqqara, 13 or the style found in murals of Hellenistic 14 and Roman tombs in Alexandria 15 and the necropolis of Hermupolis West in Middle Egypt. 16 In addition, the statie frontal orientation of the figures, 7. Stem, 'Peintures' 94; J. Toynbee, Death and Burial in the Roman World (Baltimore 1971)82-7. 8. Grossmann, ·Bagawat' 326. 9. Fakhry, Necropolis 19-38. JO. Hauser, 'Khargeh' 40-2. 11. Fakhry, Necropolis 35. 12. C.M. Kaufmann, Handbuch der christlichen Archäologie: Einführung in die Denkmälerwelt und Kunst des Urchristentums (Paderbom 1913) 276-80. 13. J.-P. Lauer, 'Fouilles et travaux divers effectués à Saqqarah de novembre 1951 àjuin 1952' ASAE 53 ( 1955) 153-66; 'Recherches et travaux effectués à Saqqarah (décembre 1954-juin 1955)' ASAE 54 (1956) 109-16; A. Grabar, Christian lconography: A Study of its Origins tr. T. Grabar (Princeton 1968, rp. 1980) pl. 137. 14. A. Adriani, Repertoria d'arte dell'Egitto greco-romano Series C: Architettura (Palerrno 1966) 1:31-2. 15. E.g. the Tigrane Tomb (M.S. Venit, The Tomb from Tigrane Pasha Streel and the lconography of Death in Roman Alexandria' AJA 101 (1997) 701-29) and the now lost paintings in the Hall of Caracalla in the Kom el-Shuqafa catacombs: T. Schreiber, Expedition Ernst Sieglin: Ausgrabungen in Alexandria. Die Nekropole von Kom-esch-Schukafa I (Leipzig 1908) pis. 61-2. These may be compared with the stucco reliefs in the principal tomb of the Kom el-Shuqafa complex: see Adriani, Repertoria 175-7; J.-Y. Empereur, A Short Guide to the Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa, Alexandria tr. C. Clement (Alexandria 1995, rp. 2003) figs 7, 9, 11, 12-19. 16. Touna el-Gebel, located on the desert plateau above Herrnupolis (Ashmunein): S Gabra, Rapport sur les fouilles d 'Hermoupoulis ouest (Touna El-Gebel) (Cairo .
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