Jacques van der Vliet - Moses of Abydos: A Life in Fragments

This lecture will be hosted on Thursday, 1 October 2026 at 6:00 pm.

Abydos in Upper Egypt, for thousands of years a centre of pharaonic culture and religion, is a site where the historical depth of the Egyptian landscape becomes eminently visible. Recent years saw a growing interest in the later phases of its history: the transformation of the traditional cults and the Christianization of Abydos and its temples in Late Antiquity.

A central role in this process is usually attributed to the person of Moses of Abydos (or Moses the Archimandrite), a local abbot from the first half of the sixth century. His Sahidic Coptic Life tells gripping stories about his confrontation with the pagan cults at Abydos, but is only very incompletely preserved.

The present lecture focuses on the current project of reconstructing his Coptic Life, undertaken by Jitse Dijkstra (Ottawa) and the speaker, and the text’s importance for the history of religious change in late-antique Abydos.

About the Speaker

Jacques van der Vliet, Ph.D. in Coptic studies (1996, Leiden University), is Professor emeritus of Religions of Ancient Egypt at Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and a former president of the International Association for Coptic Studies (2012-2016). He is currently affiliated with the Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO) and the Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), Leiden University. He published widely with a focus on the literary culture of the ancient and medieval Christianities of Egypt and Nubia.

Attention!

The lecture starts at 6 pm. The number of seats is limited and we work on a first-come, first-served basis. We open our doors at 5:30 and close them at 6:15 or earlier in case the lecture room reaches its full capacity.