Geometric painting in late-antique Egypt: the ceiling of a 4th-c. church at Amheida (Dakhla Oasis)

Abstract

As part of an investigation of the use of geometric painting on ceilings in late-antique Egypt, this article will focus on the evidence found in a 4th-c. A.D. church at the polis of Trimithis (Amheida), located in the Dakhla Oasis of Egypt‘s Western Desert. Excavation in 2012-13 as part of a project directed by R. S. Bagnall highlighted the church‘s rôle for both cult and burials. Thousands of fragments of painted plaster, part of the church‘s collapsed flat ceiling, revealed a wide array of interlocked geometrical shapes in vivid colors, creating a visually dramatic contrast with the church‘s seemingly white walls. The polychrome decoration was probably meant to replicate the effect of a coffered ceiling. Similar geometric schemes are found elsewhere in the Western Desert in both domestic and funerary contexts, and there is evidence of other Egyptian Early Christian churches that had flat ceilings, but a flat roof with painted geometric decoration in the context of an Early Christian church is thus far unattested elsewhere in Egypt. This article will highlight the popularity and longevity of this decorative style in Egypt throughout the Roman period and well into late antiquity and will point to similarities between this type of ceiling decoration and Alexandrian models of the Ptolemaic period, as well as mosaic designs found throughout Mediterranean lands.