Vivant Denon's Re-discovery of Ancient Egypt. Part 2

General Belliard, the local commander at Aswan, had frequent patrols scout the surrounding land. Denon joined a low-key reconnaissance mission, which brought him to a small, barren valley prized with the impressive ruins of the Monastery of St. Simeon, one of the largest Coptic monasteries in Egypt.

Overwhelmed by its isolation and austerity, and amazed by the early Christians’ achievements in such a remote place, Denon allowed himself to drift off, his mind pondering the violent end this lonely colony of Christians must have suffered, its embattled walls screaming out to him of their sad demise.

The monastery did indeed have a violent destiny; Arabs invaded it in 1321, killing the monks as they destroyed the monastery.

It was erected about the same time that the Isis cult on Philae was suppressed. Over the years the monastery flourished into a small city of 300 monks with storehouses, workshops and bakeries all humming with activity and the valley dotted with fields, gardens and orchards all the way down to the Nile. Still, an ascetic lifestyle reigned within the monastery’s thick walls.