Image: not online; photograph from el-Sayed and el-Masry, Athribis I, p. 64, fig. 1.2.16
Clavis number: ECMA 144
Other descriptors: none
Location: above the site of the women’s monastery in Atripe (modern village of Wannina, near Sohag)
Category: frescoes
Related literature: Acts of Paul and Thecla
Featured characters and locations: Thecla.
1. DESCRIPTION
Material: water colors on stone
Size: not specified
Images: the wall painting depicts a woman (likely Thecla) between two lions, with one of them licking her feet. A nearby orans likely represents the occupant of the tomb.
Date: not yet dated
Provenance: in situ
2. RELATION TO APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE
The Acts of Paul and Thecla include a depiction of the attempted martyrdom of Thecla:
Thecla was taken from the hand of Tryphaena and stripped, given an undergarment to wear, and cast into the stadium. Lions and Bears were cast in to attack her. And a fierce lioness ran up and lay at her feet. The crowd of women uttered a great cry. A bear ran up to attack her; but the lioness ran up, met the bear, and ripped him apart. (33; trans. Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bok, Vladimir G. Materìaly po arkheologìi hristìanskago Egipta (Matériaux pour servir à l’archéologie de l’Égypte chrétienne). St. Petersburg: Eugene Thiele, 1901 (pp. 69–70, pl. 29, fig. 2)
Grüneisen, W. de. Les charactéristiques de l’art copte. Florence: Institutio di edizioni artistische fratelli alinari, 1922 (p. 41, fig. 2).
Davis, Stephen J. The Cult of Saint Thecla: A Tradition of Women’s Piety in Late Antiquity. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008 (p. 164, and fig. 24).
El-Motagally, Hala Kamal Abd. “Saint Thecla on Coptic Wall Paintings.” International Journal of Advanced Studies in World Archeology 3.1 (2020): 46–60 (see p. 54 and fig. 5).
El-Sayed, Rafed, and Yahya El-Masry. Athribis I: General Site Survey 2003–2007. Archeological and Conservation Studies. The Gate of Ptolemy IX, Architecture and Inscriptions. 2 vols. Cairo: Inst. Francais d’Archeologie Orientale, 2012 (p. 64, figs. 1.2.15–16).
Higgins, Sabrina C. “St. Thecla and the Art of Her Pilgrims: Toward an Autonomous Feminine Aesthetic Praxis.” Journal of the Canadian Society for Coptic Studies 11 (2019): 65–80 (see pp. 72–73, and fig. 5).
Schmitz, Alfred L. Das Totenwesen der Kopten: Kritische Übersicht über die literarischen und monumentalen Quellen. ZÄS 65/1. Lepizig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1930 (p. 19 no. 17).
4. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
“Athribis (Upper Egypt).” Wikipedia.
“The Women’s Monastery at Atripe.” Yale Egyptology.
Entry created by Tony Burke, York University, 20 June 2022.