The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said about this discovery:
It indicates the importance of this site in the times of the Old Kingdom, the Middle Ages and the Low Ages. On one of the walls of these buildings, a text of supplications and supplications to the early holy fathers was revealed, written in black ink in 8 horizontal lines in Coptic script, topped with shelves of mud and hay that served probably to place the monk provides and preserves the manuscripts. The buildings that have been discovered in the upper cemetery of the area are qalliyat (places of worship), consisting of a courtyard and a number of adjoining rooms, storage places and a hearth. The graves (goods of the deceased) discovered in the lower cemetery contained parts of wooden coffins, skeletons and some funerary furniture, but in a poor state of preservation. One of these burials belonged to a woman whose coffin was found in poor condition, with only a mask, shroud and parts of her chest. The find included a number of pottery vessels of various shapes and sizes, a set of blue and black earthenware beads and two copper mirrors.
The importance of disclosure
Ahmed Al-Nimr, an expert in Coptic heritage, architecture and arts at the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, spoke to “Sky News Arabia” about the significance of the find, saying the Mir tombs at Al-Qusiya in Assiut are among the ancient pharaonic tombs that were reused during the early spread of Christianity, and hence frying pans and religious and Coptic monuments are expected to be discovered. Worship for monks.
The archaeologist continues:
This area previously contained small churches called rock churches, which were used by the early Christians. On the first level of these tombs are ordinary tombs belonging to the Byzantine era, and on the second level are cells, inscriptions and places of worship for monks. Monks in ancient times and early Christian times in Egypt preferred to stay in distant places to worship. These findings indicate that monasticism is an idea that began in Egypt and spread throughout the world, and its first nucleus came from the monasticism of Saint Anthony in his Red Sea cave. Note that the cemetery of Mir includes a set of rock tombs entirely dug into the rock, dating from the times of the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Certainly, these finds have an indication of the biography of the Holy Family in Egypt, but these antiquities cannot be said to belong to the Holy Family, but rather they are relics of the monks. The Holy Family passed through the region of Mir on their way to Qusia, but did not stay there long, and this is confirmed by historical evidence. The Coptic manuscript that was found indicates the desire of the monks to leave their traces, and it was their way of proving their presence in a certain area, and we have already found such manuscripts in many caves in different regions where the monks lived in ancient times in Egypt.
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