INSCRIPTIONS Writing on long-lasting materials. Inscriptions, like texts written on papyrus (see PAPYROLOGY), are important primary sources of information about a society. In Egypt they appear on stone, plaster, clay, wood, metal, and textiles. They may be scratched, carved, engraved, stamped, painted or inked, or woven. Those written on clay sherds or limestone fragments are …
DAYR AL-SAQIYAH This monastery, today in ruins, was situated on the left bank of the Nile 2.5 miles (4 km) north of the DAYR AL-NASARA, at the bottom of a large wadi that opened on the stony desert at the foot of the mountain. At the foot of a high cliff is a rectangular enclosure …
DAYR AL-SANAD (Naqadah) This monastery is built into the mountain, an hour and a half’s walk to the west of Naqadah, on the left bank of the Nile. It is attested very early by a Coptic contract (Crum, 1921, no. 340), by the SYNAXARION in the recension from Upper Egypt at 21 Kiyahk, and by …
DUSH In the extreme south of the oasis of Khargah, at Dush, the ancient Kysis, the papyrological dossier of the gravediggers reveals the existence in the second half of the third century (between 224 and 306) of one of the most ancient Christian communities of Egypt. This community, headed by the priest Apollo, was to …