CAIRO, EGYPT—Ahram Online reports that frescoes and architectural elements of a medieval church have been uncovered at the Monastery of St. Bishoy by restorers who removed a modern layer of mortar from its walls. Coptic inscriptions were found below the paintings of saints and angels, which date to between the ninth and thirteenth centuries. One painting on the western wall of the church depicts a woman named Refka and her five sons, who were martyred. The team also uncovered the church’s ambon, a structure from which Christian scriptures were read. It was made of mud-brick covered with a layer of mortar and decorated with a red cross. Mohamed Abdellatif, deputy antiquities minister for Egypt’s archaeological sites, said a review of historic documents revealed the church had been remodeled in A.D. 840, during the Abbasid era, and again in 1069, during the Fatimid caliphate. For more, go to “Afterlife on the Nile.”
