The history of monasteries in Egypt as self-sustained settlements

Abstract

Monasticism initiated in Egypt and has spread worldwide. It introduced a new self-sustained architectural innovation called “monasteries”. Monasteries can be considered as homogeneous self-sustained settlements through history. This paper aims to document the origins of monasticism, leading to the development of self-sustained monasteries: conceptually, economically, and architecturally. It relies on observations, maps, and historical references. The main challenges in collecting data for this paper were the lack of published references about origins of monasticism. Most of the resources are rare documents stored in the Coptic Clerical and Theological College of Cairo, and libraries of monasteries. Thus, the paper analysis present monasteries as self-sufficient, self-sustained settlements that survived through history since the fourth century to the current state through: (zoning, architectural elements, building materials, and buildingtechniques. The architectural analysis shows that the architectural solutions of monasteriesevolved in respect to the geographical location, and context. Monasteries architecture relies on trials and errors, until it reached an applicable architectural model.