Abu Mena

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Abu Mena*
UNESCO World Heritage Site

State Party	Egypt
Type	Cultural
Criteria	iv
Reference	90
Region†	Arab States
Inscription history
Inscription	1979 (3rd Session)
Endangered	2001-
* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List. † Region as classified by UNESCO.

Abu Mena (also Abu Mina) was a town, monastery complex and Christian pilgrimage center in Late Antique Egypt, about 45 km southwest of Alexandria. Its remains were designated a World Heritage Site in 1979. There are very few standing remains, but the foundations of most major buildings, such as the great basilica, are easily discernible.

Recent agricultural efforts in the area have led to a significant rise in the water table, which has caused a number of the site's buildings to collapse or become unstable. The site was added to the list of threatened World Heritage Sites in 2001.

1 History
2 Archaeological excavations
3 Notes
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] History

Menas of Alexandria was martyred in the late 3rd or early 4th century (see Early Christianity). Various 5th-century and later accounts give slightly differing versions of his burial and the subsequent founding of his church. The essential elements are that his body was taken from Alexandria on a camel, which was led into the desert beyond Lake Mareotis. At some point, the camel refused to continue walking, despite all efforts to goad it. This was taken as a sign of divine will, and the body's attendants buried it on that spot.

Christ and Saint Menas in a 6th-century Egyptian icon

Most versions of the story state that the location of the tomb was then forgotten until its miraculous rediscovery by a local shepherd. From the Ethiopian Synaxarium (E.A.W. Budge, trans.):

And God wished to reveal the [place of the] body of Saint Mînâs. And there was in that desert a certain shepherd, and one day a sheep which was suffering from the disease of the scab went to that place, and dipped himself in the water of the little spring which was near the place, and he rolled about in it and was healed straightway. And when the shepherd saw this thing, and understood the miracle, he marvelled exceedingly and was astonished. And [afterwards he used to take some of the dust from that shrine, and mix it with water, and rub it on the sheep, and if they were ill with the scab, they were straightway healed thereby. And this he used to do at all times, and he healed all the sick who came to him by this means.

Word of the shepherd's healing powers spread rapidly. The synaxarium describes Constantine the Great sending his sick daughter to the shepherd to be cured, and credits her with finding Menas' body, after which Constantine ordered the construction of a church at the site. (Some versions of the story replace Constantine with the late-5th century emperor Zeno, but archaeologists have dated the original foundation to the late 4th century.^[1]) By the late 4th century, it was a significant pilgrimage site for Christians who sought healing and other miracles.^[2]^[3]

During the reign of Arcadius, the local archbishop observed that crowds were overwhelming the small church. He wrote to the eastern emperor, who ordered a major expansion of the facilities, the first of three major church expansions which would eventually take place. By the end of the Late Antique period, Abu Mena had become the leading pilgrimage site in Egypt.^[4]^[5]

Abu Mena was destroyed by the Muslim conquest of the mid-7th century.

[edit] Archaeological excavations

The site was first excavated from 1905 to 1907. These efforts uncovered a large basilica church, an adjacent church which had probably housed the saint's remains, and Roman baths.^[6]

A later, long-term series of excavations by the DAI ended in 1998. The most recent excavations uncovered a large dormitory for poor pilgrims, with separate wings for men and for women and children. A complex to the south of the great basilica was likely the residence of the hegoumenos, or abbot. Excavations suggest that the great xenodocheion, a reception area for pilgrims, may originally have been a cemetery. A baptistery, adjacent to the site of the original church, appears to have gone through at least three phases of development. Also uncovered was a complex of wine presses, including underground storage rooms, which dates to the 6th and 7th centuries.^[4]

[edit] Notes

^ Grossmann, Peter (1998). "The Pilgrimage Center of Abû Mînâ". in D. Frankfurter (ed.), Pilgrimage & Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt. Leiden-Boston-Köln, Brill: p. 282
^ Talbot, Alice-Mary (2002). "Pilgrimage to Healing Shrines: The Evidence of Miracle Accounts". Dumbarton Oaks Papers 56: pp. 153–173. doi:10.2307/1291860.
^ Armstrong, Gregory T. (1967). "Constantine's Churches". Gesta 6: pp. 1–9. doi:10.2307/766661.
^ ^a ^b Bagnall, Roger S. (2001). "Archaeological Work on Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, 1995-2000". American Journal of Archaeology 105 (2): pp. 227–243. doi:10.2307/507272.
^ Weitzmann, Kurt (1977). "The Late Roman World". The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 35 (2): pp. 2–96. doi:10.2307/3259887.
^ Wilber, Donald N. (1940). "The Coptic Frescoes of Saint Menas at Medinet Habu". The Art Bulletin 22 (2): pp. 86–103. doi:10.2307/3046689.

[edit] See also

Saint Mina Monastery in Mariut, the modern pilgrimage site, which borders the original Abu Mena site to the north

[edit] External links

Abu Mena at UNESCO World Heritage Centre; includes links to 360˚ panoramic photos of the site

v • d • e World Heritage Sites in Egypt

Abu Mena · Islamic Cairo · Memphis and its Necropolis – the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur · Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae · Saint Catherine Area · Ancient Thebes with its Necropolis · Wadi Al-Hitan (Whale Valley)