AKHMIM (Aḥmīm). - A city in Middle Egypt, with a large percentage of Coptic population, rising on the site of ancient Panopolis, sacred to the cult of Min-Pan. From the name of the deity came the Coptic name of the place, Šmin, and from this the Arabic Akhmim. In Coptic tradition the city is famous for its cheerful population, fond of pleasures and attached until late times to the ancient Egyptian religion transformed in the Hellenic manner. The statue of Pan, described in Stephanus of Byzantium, was destroyed only in the time of Shenoudi (4th century), who made several incursions into the city at the head of his monks to combat the pagans and overturn the temples. The destruction of one of these, called Mētrōs, is attributed to St. Athanasius. Christianity was introduced quite early into A., and the father of cenobitism, Pachomius, founded three monasteries there. Two of its bishops took part in the Council of Nicaea and in that of Ephesus (E. Amélineau, La géographie de l'Égypte à l'époque copte, Paris 1893, pp. 18-22). In the city stands the Coptic church of the Virgin (al-Adra), not very ancient: it belongs to the type very widespread in the late Middle Ages with parallel naves made up of square bays covered with domes or cross vaults, and with three apsidal sanctuaries. The construction is entirely of brick (V. Somers Clarke, Christian Antiquities in the Nile Valley, Oxford 1912, pp. 144-45).
Archaeologically A. is very important for its vast necropolis, in which have been found very numerous fragments of decorated textiles and also entire garments (tunics) with textile inlays. The necropolis was discovered by G. Maspero, but unfortunately it was damaged by clandestine excavations carried out by the natives, and even those conducted by Europeans did not shine for their method, so that the elements that could have given the exact chronology of the tombs were destroyed or were not collected. On the finds at A. see the works of R. Forrer, Die Gräber-und Textilfunde von Achmim-Panopolis, Strasbourg 1891; Römische und Byzantinische Seiden-Textilien aus dem Gräberfelde von Achmim-Panopolis, ibid. 1891; Mein Besuch in El Achmim, ibid. 1895. The chronology of the textiles of A. was established on the many specimens bought by the Victoria and Albert Museum of London, and on the basis of stylistic criteria by A. F. Kendrick, Catalogue of Textiles from Burying-grounds in Egypt, London 1920-22. The necropolis comprises burials of all periods, from the Greco-Roman to the Christian of advanced date, and also to the Muslim.
The Christian subjects represented are, in the earliest times, equilateral crosses, gemmed crosses and crosses in the shape of an ank, sometimes within garlands borne by flying angels; later appear nimbed figures, the orant, Daniel between two lions and Gospel scenes. An important group of textiles is constituted by the fabrics with decoration printed in colors, perhaps by the batik process: among these are found some fragments probably of Indian importation. Those of local production (with the characteristic substitution of A. for P. in the inscriptions) show saints (ΘΩΜΑC, ΜΑΡΚΟΣ, ΠΕΤΡΟC), the Annunciation, the resurrection of Lazarus and other Gospel scenes, as well as Moses on Sinai. Another important group is that of the silk textiles, which it has not yet been possible to determine with certainty whether they are products of Egyptian industry or more probably of Syrian and imported into Egypt. Stylistically and by the scenes represented, the second hypothesis seems the most certain: Asiatic influences are preponderant in them. Some of these fragments bear woven into them the names ZAXAPIOT, IOSEPH, which seem to be those of the weavers, although there is no agreement among scholars on this interpretation.
Ugo Monneret de Villard
