Intra-Ecclesial Interments and the Notion of ‘Privilege’ in Early Christianity: Oasis Magna as a Case-Study

Intra-ecclesial interments were a common feature of the physical religious landscape of late antiquity. Likely having started already by the third century, such burials are archaeologically traceable predominantly from the fifth century, after having grown in popularity during the course of the fourth. These interments existed in several forms—pit-graves in church floors, in sarcophagi or loculi in crypts or hypogea which were often, but not exclusively, in the area of the altar, as well as in annexed funerary chapels. Although there are numerous archaeological attestations throughout Egypt, details of the phenomenon, such as to who these burial contexts were available, remain ambiguous. The practice is often explained simply as a privilege, understood as having been awarded to important religious figures, correlating with the cult of saints. There are indeed instances of such burials having belonged to holy figures of more or less renown, including saints and bishops, but numerous examples of the interment of women and juveniles attest to a more nuanced realm of privilege. Rather than wealth or apparent holiness—though these too were important—there appear to have been a larger range of factors which contributed to an individual’s eligibility for such a burial. The earliest securely dated examples of church crypts and intra-ecclesial interments in Egypt come from the Kharga and Dakhla oases, with the relevant examples also including juvenile and female interments. As such, the oasean sites will form the core corpus of this broad study, which will be expanded upon with comparanda from throughout Egypt and the wider Mediterranean. The intention of the paper is to examine the notion of privilege amongst late antique Christians in Egypt and see how this manifested in funerary practices, all the while introducing a comprehensive assemblage of archaeological data upon which other scholars can develop.