The Scrolls of Bishop Timotheus

Two Documents from Medieval Nubia

by J. Martin Plumley

Image coming soon

Extent: 66 pages

Publisher: Egypt Exploration Society

Subjects: Ancient Egypt

Series: Texts from Excavations

Series volume number: 1

Language: English

(Hardback) (Published)

(December 1975)

ISBN: 9780856980442

Price: $12.00

In stock

Discovered in 1964 at Qasr Ibrim, the scrolls are a key find from that season’s Egypt Exploration Society work. They are notable for being the finest surviving medieval letters of a Coptic Patriarch to a bishop, showing that the Christian Church persisted in Lower Nubia into the late 14th century.


Found in 1964 at the fortress of Qasr Ibrim in Nubia, the scrolls must be reckoned amongst the most important discoveries in that season’s work by the Egypt Exploration Society. They are doubtless the finest surviving example of medieval letters testimonials issued by a Patriarch of the Coptic Church to a bishop after his consecration and before his subsequent enthronement. Their greates importance, however, is as evidence that the Christian Church was still surviving in Lower Nubia in the late 14th century and its adherents numerous enough to warrant their own bishop.

  • By (author) J. Martin Plumley