Churches in Lower Nubia

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1910 edition. Excerpt: ...the rubbish. There are two more mounds of sand to the north of the central building, but there are no actual walls showing to indicate their nature. To the west of the castle is the temple site, now partly covered by the adjacent mounds, Remains of and to the south of this the ground is littered with sandstone and granite fragments of Christian Churches. date. There are large granite columns, podia, carved imposts and string courses. The general character of the remains is Byzantine and unlike the later developed style of Nubian church architecture. Just within the southwest of the enclosure there are remains of a church of similar type, but of smaller size to judge by the relative dimensions of the columns. There is less rubbish at this site, so that the general outline of the church can be distinctly traced.-Excavation would reveal the plan almost in its entirety. Much pottery and traces of walling reveal the existence of settlement outside the fortress wall principally to the southwest of it. The accumulation of sand is so great that it is impossible to calculate the extent or character of these buildings. About 330 m. to the west of the fortress an isolated sandstone rock stands prominently above Church on the cultivation. This seems to have been an object of veneration alike to pagan and Christian, tlJ for there is a niche in memory of Setaw, Governor of Ethiopia under Rameses II, cut in the southwest side of it, while on the north and west of it there are Coptic tombs. Part of the eastern side of the rock has been artificially levelled and on this a church was built, a portion of the south wall of which was hewn out of the solid stone. (Pl. 12, Fig. a.) The outline of the building can be traced amid the debris, which has become a...