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Sepulchral tablet set up in memory of Apa Pahomo, the head of a monastic settlement. Saint Victor, and on the left a figure of Saint Apakene. [Southern Egyptian Gallery, Bay 30, No. 1103.]

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the common language of the country, Coptic ceasing to be spoken except in monasteries and remote villages. In 642 the Arabs, under Abd-Allah bin Sa'd, occupied the Egyptian Sûdân, and ten years later they marched to Dongola, destroyed the church and the town, and levied an annual tribute, or Bakt, consisting of 360 or 365 men upon the Nubians, which was paid with more or less regularity for nearly 500 years. On several occasions the Arabs invited the Christians of Nubia to embrace Islâm, but the latter steadily rejected the offer, paid their tribute, and continued to worship God according to the teachings of their Jacobite priests, who were appointed to their office by the Patriarch of Alexandria. Many hundreds of churches were built in the Sûdân between A.D. 540, when the Christian religion was established by Silko, king of the Nobadae, and 1450, when the Christian kingdom of Alwa, on the Blue Nile, was destroyed. During the greater part of these 900 years the Liturgy was recited in Greek, and the services were conducted after the manner laid down by the spiritual authorities in Alexandria. Certain Books of the Bible and various Offices were translated into Nûbî, the language of the country; but of these few remains are extant.

In Egypt the Copts founded and maintained many monasteries, and built many churches; and from these come two remarkable series of monuments, inscribed in Greek and Coptic, which are exhibited in Bays 28, 30, and 32 of the Southern Egyptian Gallery. The greater number of them belong to the period between 600 and 1000 A.D., and among them may be noted:-The stele of Isos (?), inscribed in Greek with a prayer to the "God of Spirits" (Bay 26, No. 1094); the stele of Pahomo (see Plate LIII), the father of a monastic settlement, with figures of the military saints Apakene and Victor (Bay 30, No. 1103); the apse from the shrine of a saint, on which are sculptured vine branches, with doves seated on them, and figures of flowers, shells, fish, etc. a very interesting object (Bay 32, No. 1104); the stele of John the Deacon, inscribed with a lament on the bitterness of death (Bay 30, No. 1105); an altar slab from a church (Bay 32, No. 1106); three stelae, inscribed with invocations to saints (Bays 30, 32, Nos. 1107-1109); apse from a shrine of a saint from a church at Philae (Bay 30, No. 1113); and a group of stelae commemorating the holy women Hèlené, daughter of Peter, deacon and steward. of the Church of St. John, in Esna, in Upper Egypt (Bay 30, No. 1115), Sara, Rachel, Teucharis, Troïs, and Rebecca

(Bay 32, Nos. 1116-1120). Many of the sepulchral stelae are richly sculptured with pediments of shrines, pillars with elaborate carvings, figures of doves, and everywhere are prominent the cross, which is assumed to be identical with the

ankh †, the old Egyptian symbol of "life," and the crown. On several of them also are seen Alpha and Omega, A . The most elaborately decorated stele is that which was set up for the child Mary in the old church at Sûhâk. The

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Sepulchral tablet of Abraam, the "perfect monk."

[Southern Egyptian Gallery,

Sepulchral tablet of Rachel, a Christian lady. [Southern Egyptian Gallery,

Bay 32, No. 1117.]

Bay 30, No. 1136.] design is good, the cutting excellent, and it is one of the finest examples extant of this class of monument (Bay 32, No. 1123). A very interesting group of Coptic documents, consisting of affidavits, letters, invoices, contracts, extracts from the Scriptures and from liturgies, hymns, etc., is exhibited

1 Copies and translations of most of the Greek and Coptic inscriptions have been published by the Trustees of the British Museum in "Coptic and Greek Texts of the Christian Period from Ostraka, Stelae, etc., in the British Museum." With Ico plates. 1905. Foolscap. £2.

in Table-case M in the Fourth Egyptian Room.

In division 4

of the same case is a good collection of Coptic crosses, pendants with figures of St. George, etc., from Panopolis. Several very fine examples of linenwork from Coptic graves and churches will be found in Table-cases E and J in the Third Egyptian Room, and a handsome bier cloth in Wallcases 70 and 71, in the Second Egyptian Room.

Soon after the Arabs had conquered Egypt, they found it necessary to keep a strong garrison at Syene, the modern Aswân. In order to relieve the soldiers of the garrison from the duty of a pilgrimage to Mekkah, an order was issued from Fostât, the first Arab capital in Egypt, near Old Cairo, that a pilgrimage to Aswân counted as a pilgrimage to Mekkah; hence for some two or three hundred years Aswân was regarded as a holy place, and pious Muslims were brought there from all parts to be buried. A collection of gravestones inscribed in Kûfi, or Kufic, a form of Arabic writing, from the old Muḥammadan cemetery at Aswân, is exhibited in the Second Northern Gallery (Wall-cases 52-54). The oldest example is that of Azhar, son of Abd as-Salâm, who died in the year of the Hejira 252 A.D. 866.

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The Arab dynasties which ruled Egypt and the Sûdân between 656 and 1517 are as follows:

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The Arab domination came to an end in 1517, when Selim, sultân of Turkey, conquered the country, and Egypt became a Turkish Province, or Pashalik.

1 The word Khalifa means 16
The word Mamluk means

successor," i.e., of the Prophet. "slave."

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