ISAW announces the publication of Early Christianity at Amheida (Egypt’s Dakhla Oasis), A Fourth-Century Church: Volume 1, The Excavations (Amheida VII) by Nicola Aravecchia
The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World and NYU Press are pleased to announce the publication of the latest volume from ISAW Monographs, Early Christianity at Amheida (Egypt’s Dakhla Oasis), A Fourth-Century Church: Volume 1, The Excavations (Amheida VII) by Nicola Aravecchia.
Early Christianity at Amheida (Egypt’s Dakhla Oasis), A Fourth-Century Church, Volume 1 is the latest monograph in the Amheida series and the first volume dedicated to the archaeology of an early Christian church at Amheida, or the ancient city of Trimithis, in the Dakhla Oasis of the Western Desert of Egypt. The Amheida project started in 2001 and since 2008 New York University has been the primary sponsoring institution. For more information about the Amheida Project, please follow this link.
This church at Amheida was excavated between 2012 and 2023, and has been shown to date to the mid-fourth century CE. It is therefore among the earliest purpose-built, basilica churches in Egypt to be scientifically explored. As the excavations revealed, it also contained one of the oldest Christian funerary crypts to have been excavated in Egypt. The church at Amheida thus offers a wealth of new data on early Christianity in Egypt, particularly with respect to the earliest phases of Christian art and architecture and burial customs. Aravecchia offers here a archaeological, historical, and art historical study of this early church and its remarkable crypts, including a systematic treatment of the stratigraphy, building techniques, materials, features, architecture, decoration, and finds of the church. A scholar of early Christianity in Egypt, he also carefully contextualizes this church at the edge of the Roman Empire in the history of early Christianity in late antique Egypt more broadly.
The volume will be accompanied by an online, open-access digital image repository, which contains all of the images in the volume, including the Harris matrices. These images will be available to the general public under a Creative Commons license.
The book will be a key resource for specialists interested in Roman and Late Antique Egypt, the archaeology of Greco-Roman Egypt, and Early Christianity.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Nicola Aravecchia is Associate Professor of Classics and of Art History and Archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis and Archaeological Field Director of the NYU Amheida Excavations. In addition to numerous articles about archaeology and early Christian architecture, he is also the author of ʿAin el-Gedida: 2006–2008 Excavations of a Late Antique Site in Egypt's Western Desert (Amheida IV) and the co-author of An Oasis City, both published by ISAW and the NYU Press.
About ISAW Monographs
Early Christianity at Amheida (Egypt’s Dakhla Oasis), A Fourth-Century Church: Volume 1, The Excavations (Amheida VII) is the eighteenth volume to be published in the ISAW Monographs series, a joint publication project with NYU Press. ISAW Monographs publishes authoritative studies of new evidence and research into the texts, archaeology, art history, material culture, and history of the cultures and periods representing the core areas of study at NYU's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. The topics and approaches of the volumes in this series reflect the intellectual mission of ISAW as a center for advanced scholarly research and graduate education whose aim is to encourage the study of the economic, religious, political, and cultural connections between ancient civilizations, from the Western Mediterranean across the Near East and Central Asia, to China.
As with ISAW Papers, ISAW's born-digital journal, ISAW is committed to publishing all volumes of ISAW Monographs free and online for the interested public and scholarship community in a timely fashion. Currently, five volumes of ISAW Monographs are available free online via the ISAW Publications page.
Information about previous volumes, including how to order them in both print and online versions, is available via the ISAW Publications page and the NYU Press website. For information or questions about ISAW Monographs and ISAW's publishing projects, please email David M. Ratzan: david.ratzan@nyu.edu. To request review copies, please email Leah Baxter: leah.baxter@nyu.edu.
Early Christianity at Amheida (Egypt’s Dakhla Oasis)
A Fourth-Century Church:
Volume 1, The Excavations
(Amheida VII)
By Nicola Aravecchia
480 pages | 358 illustrations | 8.5 x 11.0 in.
$85.00 | 9781479813506
Publication date: Sept. 10, 2024
isaw.nyu.edu | www.nyupress.org
Contact: david.ratzan@nyu.edu