|
The picture shows the relief of an angel from a pillar of the monastery at Bawit.
Bawit lies along the Nile's west bank in middle Egypt, roughly forty miles north of Asyut. One mile inland in the desert stands the famous Monastery of Saint Apollo (Deir Abu Abullu), which was established by the monastery's namesake in the late fourth century. Saint Apollo, or Apa Apollo ("the equal of angels") in Coptic, was initially a merchant known for his generosity to the poor. He later pursued the ascetic life, fleeing to the desert to found one of its first monastic communities, which grew to include some five hundred monks engaged in agriculture and trade.
The site was excavated intermittently between 1901 and 1913 by the French Archaeological Institute in Cairo; most of the structural finds were removed to the Coptic Museum in Cairo and the Louvre in Paris.
| 