The volume is the first study of the archaeology of religion of Christian Nubia. It presents the material record of Nubian monasticism and offers a comparative analysis of this phenomenon. On the basis of archaeological and epigraphic data, the author reconstructs the life in Nubian monasteries. The work features a catalogue of archaeological sites tentatively identified as locations of monastic communities, as well as an overview of pertinent textual sources. Among the focal points are spatial aspects of the Nubian monastic movement, particularly the location of Nubian monasteries and their spatial organisation. Spatial analysis of monastic sites serves as a point of departure for insights into the social and economic matters of monastic communities in Nubia, which are central to the third part of the book. From the scarce sources the author recreates the complex spiritual and social dynamics present in monasteries, their management systems and competing hierarchies.

Christianity and monasticism have flourished along the Nile Valley in the Aswan region of Upper Egypt and in what was once Nubia, from as early as the fourth century until the present day. The contributors to this volume, international specialists in Coptology from around the world, examine various aspects of Coptic civilization in Aswan and Nubia over the past centuries. The complexity of Christian identity in Nubia, as distinct from Egypt, is examined in the context of church ritual and architecture. Many of the studies explore Coptic material culture: inscriptions, art, architecture, and archaeology; and language and literature. The archaeological and artistic heritage of monastic sites in Edfu, Aswan, Makuria, and Kom Ombo are highlighted, attesting to their important legacies in the region.

Examining the area of Nubia and Sudan from the prehistoric to the nineteenth century AD, this is an exceptional study of the area's archaeology and history. The first major work in its field for over thirty years, this is a must for course students.

This book situates discussions of Christian monasticism in Egypt and Palestine within the socio-economic world of the long Late Antiquity, from the golden age of monasticism into and well beyond the Arab conquest (fifth to tenth century). Its thirteen chapters present new research into the rich corpus of textual sources and archaeological remains and move beyond traditional studies that have treated monastic communities as religious entities in physical seclusion from society. The volume brings together scholars working across traditional boundaries of subject and geography and explores a diverse range of topics from the production of food and wine to networks of scribes, patronage, and monastic visitation. As such, it paints a vivid picture of busy monastic lives dependent on and led in tandem with the non-monastic world.

The cultures of Nubia built the earliest cities, states, and empires of inner Africa, but they remain relatively poorly known outside their modern descendants and the community of archaeologists, historians, and art historians researching them. The earliest archaeological work in Nubia was motivated by the region's role as neighbor, trade partner, and enemy of ancient Egypt. Increasingly, however, ancient Nile-based Nubian cultures are recognized in their own right as the earliest complex societies in inner Africa. As agro-pastoral cultures, Nubian settlement, economy, political organization, and religious ideologies were often organized differently from those of the urban, bureaucratic, and predominantly agricultural states of Egypt and the ancient Near East. Nubian societies are thus of great interest in comparative study, and are also recognized for their broader impact on the histories of the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia brings together chapters by an international group of scholars on a wide variety of topics that relate to the history and archaeology of the region. After important introductory chapters on the history of research in Nubia and on its climate and physical environment, the largest part of the volume focuses on the sequence of cultures that lead almost to the present day. Several cross-cutting themes are woven through these chapters, including essays on desert cultures and on Nubians in Egypt. Eleven final chapters synthesize subjects across all historical phases, including gender and the body, economy and trade, landscape archaeology, iron working, and stone quarrying.

Nubia had a rich pagan heritage, stretching back thousands of years. During probably the 6th century AD various factors led to the adoption of Christianity. This book charts this huge cultural transition and its impact.

The book presents the results of my in-depth researches on late antique Egyptian monasticism. In fact, it is my third book dealing with this fascinating phenomenon. Here, like in my two earlier books on the subject, I have reworked some of the previously published ideas or texts of mine and in effect my own understanding of the topic has evolved and changed owing to the discoveries of both textual and archaeo­logical sources and to new interpretations of the already known data. The first book, Moines et communautés monastiques en Égypte (ive-viiie siècles), was published in 2009 and focused primarily on the physical aspects of monastic life, the geographical conditions of monastic communities and on their economic activity. In it, I dedicated ample space to the questions of terminology, particularly to the terms referred to monastic groupings, their leaders and members responsible for performing specific duties. While writing that book, I perused a vast number of literary texts available in various languages, but pride of place was given to documentary evidence preserved in the form of papyri, ostraca, and limestone or wooden writing tablets. My intention was also to provide readers with information on places with surviving remnants of monasteries or hermitages and thus expand the ''database'' (for want of a better word) of Egyptian monasticism by taking into account this particular category of archaeological evidence. The second book owes its origin to the request I received from the publishing house of the Benedictine Abbey of Tyniec to write a volume on Egyptian monasticism in Polish. It was partly based on chapters contained in the French book, but a substantial portion of the Polish book consisted of new material dealing in a greater detail with the foundational monastic texts such as the apophthegms, the Life of Antony by Athanasius of Alexandria, Historia Lausiaca by Palladius, the writings of John Cassian, the invaluable and extensive dossier of the Pachomian congregation, and the works written by Shenoute. The book includes a presentation of ascetic doctrines, a topic which was only tangentially addressed in Moines et communautés monastiques. Heedful of the usual rigours of research work, I nevertheless reduced the reference apparatus (the footnotes specifically) so as not to discourage the non-specialist readers interested in the topic. It was released in 2014 with the title Drugi dar Nilu, czyli o mnichach i klasztorach w późno­antycznym Egipcie (''The Second Gift of the Nile: Monks and Monasteries in Late Antique Egypt''; the first part of the title was proposed by the Benedictines, while the other was added, slightly pedantically, by myself). Once the work on that book was completed, I was more happy with the result than was the case with its predecessor: it seemed to me that the Polish book provided the reader with a greater wealth of information interpreted in a much more mature manner, even in spite of the fact that I had to leave out some material (especially my discussions of archaeological sources, as this time I could not include any illustrations). This particular book has emanated from the Tyniec book, much in the same way as the Tyniec one did from the volume written in French. It is largely composed of English translations of rearranged, reworked, revised and enriched individual chapters of its Polish predecessor. More attention is given here to the first congregation of Pachomian monasteries and the federation of three monastic establishments governed by Shenoute. The part on monastic economy has been expanded, which reflects my belief that this aspect of the phenomenon in question can usher us into the ''real reality'' of the communities as opposed to the reality depicted in monastic literature or in theoretical writings on asceticism. It goes without saying that I have also added references to newly published studies on the subject, all the while respecting the principle of keeping the biblio­graphy selective and resisting the temptation of excessively expanding the footnotes. The chronological scope of the book extends to the mid-eighth century or thereabouts. The Arab conquest had an immense impact on life in Egypt in a multitude of aspects, but on the whole its monastic circles were not significantly affected. One cannot escape this impression while reading the letters written in Coptic in the first half of the eighth century found in Western Thebes, particularly the dossier of Frange. In my view at least, the image of life in Egyptian monasteries which emerges from those documents is not significantly different from what can be inferred from texts written a hundred years earlier. (from the Author''s Foreword)