Monthly Photos　Jul 2022

Photos taken by ILCAA staff and associates are posted here once a month; most of them are taken during their field research in Asia and Africa.

(The copyright belongs to the photographers.)

Monastery with camels

It is a stained glass window in a cathedral reconstructed in the oldest Christian city remains in Egypt. In the center, it shows St. Minas of Egypt, a hermit of the Coptic Church martyred because of the persecution in the Roman Empire. According to a legend, while his disciples had been carrying his corpse on a camel, the camel suddenly stopped walking and refused to move in the middle of the desert. Minas was buried in that place, where water gushed out after that. The town flourished as a pilgrimage site after the construction of a church in the fourth century, but the whole town was destroyed and fell into ruin afterwards. It was in 1959 when Cyril VI, the Pope of Alexandria constructed a monastery there.

April 30, 2005
Abu Mina, Egypt
Photograph by Emi GOTO