Nag Hammadi
Town on the Nile in Upper Egypt that gave its name to the Coptic papyrus books found in its district in the 1940s. Later testimony names the foot of the cliff of Jabal al-Tarif as the find-spot.
The first report of the find, in 1948, says only that the books came from the region of Nag Hammadi, from a spot at the foot of a hill, and withholds the name of the place (Puech and Doresse, Nouveaux écrits gnostiques (1948), pp. 89–90). James M. Robinson, from interviews in the 1970s, identified the spot as the foot of the cliff of Jabal al-Tarif, and says that the finder lived at al-Qasr, the ancient Chenoboskia, where Pachomius began his life as a Christian (Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library in English, Introduction, section 3, The Discovery) (Nag Hammadi Codices Claremont archive, photograph of Jabal al-Tarif (1975), description). The coordinates given are those of the modern town. See the Nag Hammadi Library Is Found.
What happened here
- about December 1945, estimated dateThe Nag Hammadi Library Is Found
Papyrus books in Coptic, holding over fifty religious texts including the Gospel of Thomas, come to light near Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt. The first reaches the Coptic Museum in 1946; the story of the find was gathered from villagers thirty years later.