Academic Year 2011-2012

First lecture. The visual culture of Upper Egypt has typically been seen as not only separate from that produced in other major centers of the Roman empire, but also of a much lower quality. In the last decade, conservation and archaeological work at the Red and White Monasteries has uncovered fascinating evidence to the contrary, in the form of wall paintings and architecture. A decorated tomb in the White Monastery dating to the middle of the fifth century, and an apse painting in the Red Monastery church of circa 500, include no regionally specific features, and could have been created anywhere in the Mediterranean. These new finds indicate the necessity of a complete reassessment of the role of Egypt in the creation of late antique visual culture.

Second lecture. Shenoute of Atripe (d. 465 C.E.) led a huge monastic federation near the ancient city of Panopolis in Upper Egypt, at an early moment in the creation of monastic saints. He vigorously opposed ostentatious burial and the veneration of deceased humans, even including Christian martyrs. Yet, when he died, his followers created a painted tomb for him, and placed an altar on the ground above his body in the center of a chapel. This tomb chapel, on the periphery of the White Monastery, gives material expression to a conflict between the performance of perfect asceticism, the decorum of burial and commemoration of prominent individuals in the late Roman world, and the construction of Shenoute as a saint.

Third lecture. Depictions of animals in the eastern apse of the Red Monastery church have more fluid relationships to meaning than other figural representations in the monument, and lack specific identities and labels. Yet, the decision to place them in the privileged eastern lobe of the church’s triconch sanctuary indicates particularly charged subject matter. The ambiguity of these images of animals suggests that their original audiences would have related to them in a special way. An examination of the paintings’ historical context, with the aid of Shenoute’s prolific writings, will enable us to consider possible spheres of significance that include the Garden of Eden and Paradise, Adam, Christ, food, greed, lust, ideas about the male body, and transformative imitation.

Fourth lecture. Late antique monastics used the imitation of esteemed holy men as a tool to achieve higher spiritual states of being, and to increase the potential of achieving everlasting life in paradise. They also expressed and amplified the importance of celebrated ascetics through close association with more temporally distant figures. Paintings at several sites in Egypt indicate the use of visual representations to assert multiple, coexisting identities. Particularly significant monks stand in a row with the apostles, in identical garb, in paintings from the Monastery of Apa Apollo at Bawit. Their inclusion in this illustrious group asserts the notion that they are also apostles. A depiction of St. Peter in the Red Monastery church shows him dressed in the uniform worn by Shenoute’s federation. In this case, an apostle is conflated with a monastic leader by his distinctive dress alone. These and other examples provide insights into the rich scope of mimesis in the ascetic life.