Note 171 — Chapter XIX · BACK THROUGH NUBIA.
Reading edition
They probably mark the site of a certain Coptic monastery described in an ancient Arabic manuscript quoted by E. Quatremere, which says that “in the town of Tafah there is a fine monastery called the monastery of Ansoun. It is very ancient; but so solidly built, that after so great a number of years it still stands uninjured. Near this monastery, facing the mountain, are situated fifteen villages.” See “Mémoires Hist. et Géographiques sur l’Égypte et le Nubia,” par E. Quatremere. Paris, 1811, vol. ii, p. 55.
The monastery and the villages were, doubtless, of Romano-Egyptian construction in the first instance, and may originally have been a sacred college, like the sacred college of Philæ.