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Foreword
Gerry D. Scott III
Description: The Red Monastery Church: Beauty and Asceticism in Upper Egypt
The Red Monastery Church: Beauty and Asceticism in Upper Egypt
This book presents, in a comprehensive and multidisciplinary manner, an extraordinary monument, the richly painted early Byzantine Red Monastery church at Sohag, Egypt (fig. 1). The church holds a unique place in world heritage as the best surviving triconch basilica. Most remarkable is the extent of its decoration, its interior surfaces completely...
Author
Gerry D. Scott III
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 2016 by American Research Center in Egypt, Inc.
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23716
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Foreword
Gerry D. Scott III
This book presents, in a comprehensive and multidisciplinary manner, an extraordinary monument, the richly painted early Byzantine Red Monastery church at Sohag, Egypt (fig. 1). The church holds a unique place in world heritage as the best surviving triconch basilica. Most remarkable is the extent of its decoration, its interior surfaces completely covered with paintings from the floor to the tops of the semi-domes and clerestory windows. It thus provides a stunning testament to early Byzantine architectural embellishment and aesthetic taste. Perhaps equally remarkable, though, has been the transformation of the Red Monastery church during the course of the project documented here. At the beginning of the project, the structure’s blackened walls were coated in layers of smoke and grime accumulated over centuries, the paintings barely discernible underneath. Now, through the painstaking efforts of a talented and highly skilled team of conservators, these paintings have been revealed in all the grandeur of their vivid colors and lively patterns.
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Description: Architectural polychromy and a saint within a niche
1. Architectural polychromy (phase 2) and a saint within a niche (phase 3) identified by a later inscription as Mark. T.s.II.3–T.s.II.7. The decoration on the upper frieze is a mixture of second- and third-phase pattern fragments incorrectly positioned during restoration in 1909.
Since the 1990s, the American Research Center in Egypt (arce), in partnership with Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities (MoA; formerly the Supreme Council of Antiquities, or sca), and the United States Agency for International Development (usaid), has conducted major conservation and training projects throughout Egypt. The monuments conserved have covered virtually all periods of Egypt’s long cultural history, from the prehistoric era to the Ottoman Period (1517–1798 c.e.). During the nearly twenty years of these efforts, arce has worked on several important architectural treasures, including the pharaonic temples of Karnak and Luxor, and the Bab Zuwayla (1092 c.e.), one of the monumental gates of the Fatimid royal city of al-Qahira (or Cairo). Among the treasures of Coptic heritage, arce has conducted projects at the Red Sea monasteries of Saint Antony and Saint Paul, and at the Red Monastery in Sohag, this last named, of course, being the subject of this volume.
Of all the many conservation projects that arce has now completed, the longest has been this truly monumental undertaking to clean, conserve, document, and study the remarkable early Byzantine wall paintings preserved at this architectural jewel. The project was begun with arce's first major grant from usaid, and it has continued into its present grant, each of which represented ten years of generous funding from usaid. These efforts have yielded, quite simply, spectacular results. The conservators have revealed meticulously painted surfaces of vibrant images and breathtaking colors, a far cry from the images barely visible under centuries of smoke, dirt, and other accretions. In essence, a whole new school of early Byzantine painting has emerged.
The present volume, the dedicated work of several scholars and experts working in a range of specialized fields, is devoted to sharing the results of this multiyear project both with other scholars and with the general public. arce is therefore grateful to all of them for their significant contributions and is especially grateful to Professor Elizabeth S. Bolman, whose leadership throughout the project has been both visionary and tireless.
In addition to the distinguished contributors, it is a pleasure to record the debt of gratitude we owe to our colleagues in Egypt’s MoA, who rendered invaluable assistance throughout the course of the project; to the representatives of the Coptic Church and the monks of the Red Monastery, who were both welcoming and integral to every aspect of the work; and to our partners at usaid for their generous and thoughtful support of the project. As always, we are also grateful to our friends at Yale University Press for co-publishing this work with arce.
These efforts have combined to conserve and document a unique treasure of world heritage and to create a publication that makes it available to a wider audience and shares it with those who may never have the opportunity to visit this extraordinary place in person.