Road station

Cenoboscio

Kasr el-Saijad

Cenoboscio is Chenoboskion, at Kasr el-Saijad on the west bank of the Nile, a place long tied to Thebes, with underground tombs of princes from the sixth dynasty. It mattered greatly for Egyptian Christianity: Pachomius was baptised here, and monasteries, churches and communities of monks followed. A great many Gnostic texts in Coptic, written mostly in the third and fourth centuries, were also found here, hidden in the old tombs. A cavalry unit, the Ala Neptunia, was still stationed here in late antiquity.

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