Qualla: Saint Anne (wall painting)

Saint Anne (wall painting): Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A Nubian painter in the 8th or 9th century stood in front of a fresh layer of plaster in the north nave of Faras Cathedral and made a decision no other painter ever made. When he - or she - depicted Saint Anne, the mother of Mary, the figure raised a single finger to her lips. Silence. No other known image of Anne in all of Christian art includes this gesture. The painter's name is lost. The cathedral is lost too, drowned by the rising water of Lake Nasser. But the painting, rescued by Polish archaeologists during the UNESCO Nubian Campaign in the 1960s, survived - and Anne is still quietly telling us to hush.

Saint Anne (wall painting): A Warning About Silence

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Saint Anne, in Christian tradition, is the mother of the Virgin Mary. In Nubia, she was especially venerated - invoked by women who hoped for children, who prayed for safe pregnancy, who asked her to protect the babies they had and the ones they hoped to have. The Nubian scholar ...

Saint Anne (wall painting): The Cathedral Layers

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Faras Cathedral held its paintings the way a manuscript holds its drafts. Layers of plaster, layers of saints. The Saint Anne with her finger to her lips was painted directly on the first layer of wall plaster in the north nave. At some later point, it was covered over with a new...

Saint Anne (wall painting): A Greek Inscription, Incomplete

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The painting carries an inscription in Greek, which is how educated Nubian Christians wrote. Both vertical registers are damaged. The Polish scholar S. Jakobielski reconstructed what he could: Saint Anne, mother to the Mother of God. Saint and... The sentence breaks off. Jakobiel...

Saint Anne (wall painting): What Polish Archaeologists Saved

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In the 1960s, Lake Nasser began rising behind the new Aswan High Dam, and Faras Cathedral - along with everything else in Lower Nubia - was going under. UNESCO coordinated a massive rescue campaign. A Polish archaeological team working at Faras peeled paintings off the cathedral ...