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This book traces changing perceptions of Egypt's monastic landscape through an analysis of archaeological and documentary evidence from late antiquity.
List of contents
Introduction; 1. Monastic archaeology in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; 2. Archaeology and twentieth century perceptions of the monastic landscape; 3. An ecohistory of the Egyptian landscape; 4. Late antique documentary evidence and the monastic landscape; 5. Telling stories about the Egyptian monastic landscape; 6. The archaeology of late antique buildings in Egypt; 7. Looking at Egypt's monastic built environments; Conclusions.
About the author
Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom is Professor of History and Director of Archaeology at Wittenberg University, Ohio. A fellow in Byzantine Studies, her research on Byzantine monastic Egypt has earned her awards from the Fulbright Binational Commission in Egypt, the American Research Center in Egypt, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Project Grants in Byzantine Studies from Dumbarton Oaks and the Erasmus Institute. Her publications center on the archaeology and history of monastic settlements in the Byzantine Near East with a particular focus upon Egypt. She is currently the Senior Archaeological Consultant for the Yale Monastic Archaeology Project and former Director of Archaeology for the Yale Monastic Archaeology Projects in Wadi Natrun and in Sohag, Egypt.
Summary
Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom offers a new history of the field of monastic archaeology in Egypt. Using critical theories from landscape studies, materiality and phenomenology, she analyzes archaeological, documentary, and literary sources from late antique Egypt to reconstruct how monastic settlements transformed the desertscape into a monastic landscape.
