Journal of ART in SOCIETY
  • Home
  • What readers say about us
  • Author details
  • Art book and film reviews
    • Reviews of art books
    • Reviews of art films
    • Top art tweets of the month
  • ARTICLES
  • Cultural trends and changes
    • Exploring Gustave Caillebotte’s Paris Street, Rainy Day
    • A very rich book for the very rich
    • Millet and the Angelus
    • The Two Women in White
    • Bruegel’s White Christmas: The Census at Bethlehem
    • Elsheimer’s Flight into Egypt: how it changed the boundaries between art, religion and science
    • The rescue of the fabulous lost library of Deir al-Surian
    • Feathers, fashion and animal rights
    • Lost masterpieces of ancient Egyptian art from the Nebamun tomb-chapel
    • On the Trail of the Last Supper
    • Floating pleasure worlds of Paris and Edo
    • The emergence of the winter landscape
    • Toulouse-Lautrec, the bicycle and the women's movement
    • From the Rokeby Venus to Fascism Pt 1: Why did suffragettes attack artworks?
    • From the Rokeby Venus to Fascism Pt 2: the Strange Allure of Fascism
    • The Futurists declare war on pasta
    • The art of giraffe diplomacy
    • Science becomes Art
  • Catastrophes and scandals
    • How one man saved the greatest picture in the world: Piero della Francesca’s Resurrection Page
    • Vermeer’s concert, the Gardner collection, and the art heist of the century
    • The Controversies of Constantin Brancusi: Princess X and the boundaries of art
    • Bernardo Bellotto and the reconstruction of Warsaw
    • Surviving the Black Death
    • Julie Manet, Renoir and the Dreyfus Affair
    • Art and Survival in Patagonia
    • The Isenheim Altarpiece Pt 1: Pestilence and the Concert of Angels
    • The Isenheim Altarpiece Pt 2: Nationalism, Nazism and Degeneracy
    • The shocking birth and amazing career of Guernica
  • Forgotten Women Artists
    • Forgotten Women Artists: introduction
    • Forgotten Women Artists: #1 Arcangela Paladini: The Rapid Rise and Fall of a Prodigy
    • Forgotten Women Artists: #2 Jane Loudon
    • Forgotten Women Artists: #3 Marie-Gabrielle Capet: Stepping out from the Shadows
    • Forgotten Women Artists #4: Michaelina Wautier: entering the limelight after 300 years
    • Forgotten Women Artists #5 Thérèse Schwartze and the business of painting
  • Lives and livelihoods
    • The Sphinx of Delft: Jan Vermeer’s demise and rediscovery
    • Rose-Marie Ormond: Sargent’s muse and “the most charming girl that ever lived”
    • The extraordinary career of Granville Redmond, deaf artist and silent movie actor
    • Dr Jekyll, Frankenstein and Shelley’s Heart
    • The Adventures of Nadar: photography, ballooning, invention & the Impressionists
    • Colonial artist, thief, forger and mutineer: Thomas Barrett's amazing career
    • Watchmen, goldfinders and the plague bearers of the night
    • Sarka of the South Seas
    • The discovery of an early graphic novel
    • Should artists get royalties?
    • Strange encounters: the collector, the artist and the philosopher
  • Techniques and technology
    • Art as a barometer of climate changes
    • The life and death of Mummy Brown
    • Egyptian blue: the colour of technology
    • Prussian blue and its partner in crime
    • Why wasn't photography invented earlier?
    • Comets in Art
    • Art in a Speeded Up World >
      • Overview
      • Pt 1: Changing concepts of time
      • Pt 2: The 'new' time in literature
      • Pt 3: The 'new' time in painting
    • Early influences of photography >
      • Pt 1: Initial impacts
      • Pt 2: Photography as a working aid
      • Pt 3: Photographic effects
      • Pt 4: New approaches to reality
  • Authenticity and meaning
    • Carpaccio's Miracle on the Rialto
    • Masters of All they Survey -- Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs Andrews
    • Bruegel's Peasant Wedding Feast
    • Understanding Petrus Christus’ A Goldsmith in his Shop
    • Lost in Translation: Bruegel’s Tower of Babel
    • Perception and Blindness in the 16th Century
    • "All life is here": Bruegel's 'Way to Calvary'
    • Carpaccio’s double enigma: Hunting on the Lagoon and the Two Venetian Ladies
    • Bruegel's Icarus and the perils of flight
    • Michelangelo's disputed Entombment
    • Titian, Prudence and the three-headed beast
    • The origins of an Australian art icon
  • FINDING INFO
  • Most recent articles
  • Most popular articles
  • Country-by-country guide
  • Art timeline
  • Copyright and permissions
  • Contact us
Follow us on Twitter

end notes
The rescue of the fabulous lost library of Deir al-Surian 

To return to your place in the text of the article, just hit your Back button

[1] This Day in Aviation https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/30-december-1935-wind-sand-stars/, 29 December 2017
[2] https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/1827/
[3] “The Coptic Monasteries of the Wadi Natrun” https://www.metmuseum.org/pubs/bulletins/1/pdf/3252813.pdf.bannered.pdf
[4] Natron is a hydrated sodium carbonate mineral with the formula Na2CO3·10H2O. The chemical symbol for sodium, “Na”, is based on the Latin natrium.
[5] MF Sayed and MH Abdo, “Assessment of Environmental Impact on Wadi el-Natrun Depression Lakes Water, Egypt”, World Journal of Fish and Marine Sciences 1 (2) 129-136, 2009 https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9434/7d35053545e59a5fe24e1af1141273a70fc5.pdf
http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/shortland/shortland.html
 [6] Karl-Heinz Brune, “The multiethnic character of the Wad al-Natrun”, Christianity and Monasticism in Wadi al-Natrun, American University in Cairo Press, Cairo, 2009 (ed Maged SA Mikhail and Mark Moussa), at 12, 13.
[7] Karel Innemée, “A Lifetime in Solitary: Early Hermits of the Egyptian Deserts”, Rawi Magazine, Iss 6, 2014 http://rawi-magazine.com/articles/solitary_life/
 [8] Victor Salama, “The Deir Al-Surian Manuscript Library”, Watani International, 6 July 2013 http://en.wataninet.com/culture/heritage/the-deir-al-surian-manuscript-library/10517/
[9] Martin Bailey for The Art Newspaper, “Ancient Manuscripts Found in Egyptian Monastery”, Forbes, 29 May 2002 https://www.forbes.com/2002/05/29/0529conn.html#5d18f0372944; SG Richter “Wadi El Natrun and Coptic Literature” in Christianity and Monasticism in Wadi Al-Natrun, American Univ in Cairo Press, 2009 (eds Maged S. A. Mikhail and Mark Moussa, at 43ff.
[10] Teresa Levonian Cole, “Egypt’s Mysterious Monastery Hides Ancient Secrets”, Assyrian International News Agency, 7 February 2014, http://www.aina.org/ata/20140206205930.htm; Jimmy Dunn, “The Monastery of the Syrins in Wadi Natrun”, in Tour Egypt http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/surian.htm; Richter, op cit.
[11] Other foreign collectors included the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and the St. Petersburg Library.
[12] Hon Robert Curzon. A Visit to Monasteries in the Levan , George P Putnam & Co, New York 1852 https://archive.org/stream/avisittomonaste01curzgoog/avisittomonaste01curzgoog_djvu.txt
[13] Salama, op cit; Bailey op cit
[14] E Sobczynski and M Antonia, “The new Deir al-Surian library and conservation centre”, May 2013. 20-23; https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292112802_The_new_Deir_al-Surian_library_and_conservation_centre
Sebastian Brock and Lucas van Rompay, Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts and Fragments in the Library of Deir al-Surian, Wadi al-Natrun (Egypt), Uitgeverij Peeters, 2014.
[15] A future Journal article on this aspect is being contemplated.
[16] Salama, op cit.
[17] Salama, op cit.
[18] Review in Ecclesiologist No LXXIII August 1849 at p 2 https://books.google.com.au/books?id=eI0QAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=visits+to+monasteries+in+the+levant+curzon&source=bl&ots=JlezPPmpCA&sig=VwjMiL_Nocb-RVllaz-gGDGMCXk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=IWjHUpeLO8aXkgWChoC4CA&ved=0CFMQ6AEwCTgK#v=onepage&q=visits%20to%20monasteries%20in%20the%20levant%20curzon&f=false
[19] Bailey, op cit.

​© Philip McCouat 2018
Return to HOME