Antiquities: Miracle from the Desert

For centuries, scholars have wondered what ever became of Pachoras, the lost capital of the medieval Christian kingdom of Nobatia in the cliffbound reaches of the Nile above the First Cataract. Nobatia flourished between the 7th and the 14th centuries in what the Egyptians once called Nubia, but it ultimately fell before Arab invaders. Arab documents referred to Pachoras, but no trace of it remained. The question took on a new urgency with the impending construction of the Aswan Dam, which threatened to submerge the area.

In 1961, armed with a UNESCO grant, the Polish archaeologist Kazimierz Michalowski set out with a team of scholars to excavate the most promising site: a hillside near the Bedouin village of Faras. There an earlier British archaeologist had discovered the remnants of a city of perhaps 30,000 inhabitants and unearthed parts of an Arab citadel. Michalowski dug into the citadel’s foundations. Beneath its brick walls were the remains of what had once been a Christian cathedral, covering about 9,000 sq. ft. and intended for at least a thousand worshipers. Sustained by centuries of drifted sand, many walls were still standing. Most were decorated with splendid frescoes in a remarkable state of preservation.

Working against time, the Poles painstakingly detached 120 frescoes and reaf-fixed them to thin layers of plastic reinforced by plywood boards. Sixty of the detached frescoes were shipped upstream to the Sudanese archaeological museum at Khartoum, the remainder to Warsaw.

This summer, 21 of the Polish frescoes, together with carvings and graffiti from Faras, are being shown for the first time in Western Europe at West Germany’s Villa Hügel in Essen. They have caused something of a sensation in artistic circles. Says Professor Kurt Bittel, head of the West German Archaeological Institute: “The miracle of Faras is a triple one: that these works were found, that they could be preserved, and that they existed.”

Darkened Zeal. Executed between the 6th and 12th centuries, the frescoes reveal an impressive command of technique—particularly for a place so remote. The style of the Nubian monks who painted them seems to have evolved from the naive manner of Egypt’s Copts into more severe stylization. An unidentified deacon with basilisk eyes and a mandarin mustache shows the ability of the Nobatian artist to transform a standard Coptic portrait with a sparsity of line more Byzantine than that of the Byzantines.

A portrait of St. John Chrysostomos shows how Nubian artists employed subtle shading not only for the sake of naturalism but also to heighten mood. A Madonna and Child dating from around 710 differs from many earlier extant treatments of the subject in that it shows Christ as a baby and not a diminutive adult.

For the better part of its history, Nobatia suffered from marauding bands of Arabs. In 1173, the central nave of the cathedral was destroyed. In other attacks, the irrigation system was irretrievably damaged, and as the land it had kept moist began to dry up, the relentless desert moved in. The remaining side naves became deeply embedded.

The faithful were forced to descend to worship in darkened halls. A majestic 12th century Christ shields a distinctly negroid young Nubian prince in a fresco blackened across the bottom by smoke—mute testimony to lamps that once guttered day and night before the flickering image.