Monks and Scholars in the Panopolite Nome the Epigraphic Evidence

Abstract

During the conference “Perspectives on Panopolis,” which took place in Leyden in 1998, Lucia Criscuolo discussed the evidence of the Greek inscriptions, including Christian ones, from the Panopolite nome, the present-day Sohag–Akhmim area. Already in the beginning of her paper, she observed that it would be “impossible to sketch a coherent picture of Panopolis on the basis of its Greek inscriptions.” Regrettably, the same judgment applies to the exclusively Christian sources from late antique and medieval times that are the subject of this chapter. It is not that Christian inscriptions from the region are scarce, rather to the contrary, but the record is discontinuous and often lacks the context that might give it historical significance. Further problems concern the heuristics and the accessibility of parts of the material. This chapter discusses some problems and challenges of the epigraphic evidence for the Christian history of the region. The discussion guided by the geographical distribution of the texts.