Between fasting and feasting: the literary and archaeobotanical evidence for monastic diet in Late Antique Egypt

Abstract

Fasting was an important element of early Christian behaviour in Egypt. In spite of a wealth of Late Antique monastic sources describing acts of fasting, the reality must be that food was consumed at regular intervals. To date, discussion of monastic dietary practice has been largely a historical debate. Although we do not discount this approach and will use it ourselves, this paper departs from this academic tradition by incorporating new archaeobotanical evidence from the recent excavations of the 5th–7th-century AD monastery at Kom el-Nana. Middle Egypt into the study of monastic diet. It is our belief that the use of independent forms of evidence (in this case written sources on attitudes to fasting and archaeobotanical evidence) is the best way forward to answering fundamental questions about what monastic diet was like in Late Antique Egypt.