SOHÄG. — Locality in Middle Egypt, near which stand the two most important monuments of Christian architecture in the Nile Valley, still fairly well preserved in their essential parts: they are known as the White Monastery (Dair al-Abiad) and the Red Monastery (Dair al-Ahmar), after their color, the former having been built with limestone blocks, the latter predominantly with fired bricks. The former is associated with the great monk Šenüti, for whom it was built; the latter with his disciple Běsa (Bišai).
The White Monastery was built at the expense of a certain Count Cesarius, son of Candidianus, and therefore of a high Byzantine official—a detail of some importance for the historical assessment of the monument. The inscription that has preserved the founder’s name bears no date, nor is there any mention of this count in historical documents, apart from two fleeting references in letters of Šenüti. From other evidence, however, it may be held that the church was founded around 440. The many texts concerning Šenüti and his monastery that are still extant provide no historical information. One must come down to the 12th century to learn, from Armenian and Coptic inscriptions in the frescoes of the central apse of the Sanctuary, that these paintings were executed by an Armenian artist and a Coptic artist, both bearing the name Theodore. The Coptic painting dates from 1124; the Armenian ones belong to the period between 1076 and 1124. A violent earthquake—probably one of those occurring between 1200 and 1204, known from other documents—necessitated extensive restoration during the first half of the 13th century, between 1235 and 1259. During this work, much of the original wooden roofing was replaced by brick domes, which gave the church more or less the appearance it has retained to the present day. The Red Monastery is much less well documented. It was certainly built by Běsa, the disciple and successor of Šenüti in the direction of the monastic congregation. There is only one dated inscription there, referring to paintings executed by a Mercurius in 1301, an artist who is probably the same as the one who left his name on a painting in the monastery called that of St. Simeon near Aswān, dated 1318, and on another, undated, painting in the White Monastery.
The two churches must have had a very similar ground plan, but here that of the White Monastery is described in detail, since the Red Monastery, which has suffered more extensively, preserves nothing ancient except the structure of the sanctuary. The external outline is that of a perfect rectangle, and the outer facing is inclined like that of a Pharaonic temple. This resemblance is further accentuated by the fact that the terminal cornice takes the form of a large Egyptian cavetto molding, while the gargoyles that conduct the water outside are identical to Ptolemaic ones—an interesting survival of ancient forms. Through a door on the shorter western side one enters a rectangular narthex, terminated to the north by an apse on columns and to the east by a staircase leading to the terraces. The narthex with one or two apses is common in Egypt in the 5th and 6th centuries, but derives from examples of late Eastern Hellenism. From the narthex one enters the body of the church, which is divided into three aisles by two rows of columns. The columns also run parallel to the entrance wall, a structure that would continue in Egypt until the 12th and 13th centuries (Coptic churches in Cairo). From the central nave one enters the sanctuary, which takes the form of a triconch cell, that is, it consists of three large apses branching off from a central square. This structure—which is found not only in the two churches but also in the church at Dendera, which belongs to the same period—derives from models of Syrian Hellenism. This source is also indicated by the decoration of the inner facing of these apses, consisting of two superimposed orders of columns, separated by a broad cornice and alternating with niches enclosed within richly carved, pedimented frames. The overall character is that of the exedrae in the court of the temple of Baalbek and of the nymphaeum at Gerasa. All this shows that the architects of the two churches belonged to a school that deeply preserved the traditions of late Syrian Hellenism, perpetuated its general conceptions, and was unaffected by the profound transformation that took place throughout the East after the 4th century. The central square of the Sanctuary was originally covered by a pyramidal wooden roof: all the domes now visible in both churches are due to restorations or reconstructions of the 12th or 13th century. The Sanctuary is surrounded by secondary rooms, one of which, very long and terminating in an apse (a chapter hall?), occupies almost the entire southern side of the church.
The decoration of the two churches is extremely rich. The capitals continue the type of late Syrian and Byzantine Hellenism, while the pediments in the frames of the niches reproduce those of the many sculptures from the 2nd to the 4th centuries discovered at Ahnās. The paintings are all recent (11th–13th centuries).