Folks, step right up and cast your eyes on the oldest known monastic site to be excavated. Located in the Bahariya Oasis in Egypt West of the Nile (see second image), the most recent dig happened in 2020 as the COVID pandemic wore on.
It is simply incredible that such rich discoveries are still being made. The monks started living in this structure around 350 CE, which is when Christian hermiticism was just getting started. A sacred tradition involving separating oneself from the comforts of life (sex, delicious food, material comforts), monasticism grew in popularity out of an impulse to demonstrate one’s hard-line faith. Such extreme displays of virtue were made more difficult after Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in the early 4th century, which ended the era of Roman persecutions. After all, it was harder to prove your spiritual “specialness” when Christianity was legal and you didn’t have to experience a martyr’s death because of your faith
Monks living in the basalt and mudbrick structures at Tel Ganub Qasr Al-‘Aguz would have spent their lives in silence among each other, broken with prayer and necessary communication. Two of the rooms unearthed have Biblical verses in Greek written on the walls (3rd image). The Spartan nature of their lives was viewed as a great and holy lifestyle, commendable by all Christians but obtainable by very few.
Monks occupied the area for hundreds of years — long after the region was taken over by Muslim rulers. As more information about the excavation appears, the buildings could give us a new understanding for the sort of life the monks had.
Source(s): _Smithsonian_, “Archaeologists discover traces of early Christian Community in Egypt,” Isis Davis-Marks, March 16, 2021. Images Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. Map image from wikipedia.
