Nag Hammâdi

Location of Nag Hammadi on the map of Egypt.

Nag Hammâdi (Arabic نجع حمادي), is a city in Upper Egypt, known as Chenoboskion (Greek Χηνοβόσκιον) in classical antiquity' meaning geese's grazing grounds. It is located on the west bank of the Nile in the Qena Governorate, about 80 kilometres north-west of Luxor. Its population is about 30,000. It is mostly a peasant area where goods such as sugar and aluminium are produced.

The town of Nag Hammadi was established by Mahmoud Pasha Hammadi, who was a member of the Hammadi family in Sohag. He created this town for the indigenous people who were forced to abandon their homeland by the British occupation in Sohag. In return those people gave their new town the name of Hammadi. Mahmoud Pasha Hammadi was known for his strong positions against the British occupation. He owned most of the agricultural land in Sohag.^{[citation needed]}

The Nag Hammadi Library

Main article: Nag Hammadi library

Nag Hammadi texts

Nag Hammadi is best known for being the site where, in December 1945 thirteen leather-bound papyrus codices, along with pages torn from another book, buried in a sealed jar were found by local peasants. The peasants burned one of the books and parts of a second (including its cover). Thus twelve of these books (one missing its cover) and the loose pages survive^[1]. The writings in these codices, dating back to the 2nd century AD,^[2] comprised 52 mostly Gnostic tractates (treatises), believed to be a library hidden by monks from the nearby monastery of St Pachomius when the possession of such banned writings, denounced as heresy, was made an offence.

The contents of the Coptic-bound codices were written in Coptic, though the works were probably all translations from Greek. Most famous of these works must be the Gospel of Thomas, of which the Nag Hammadi codices contain the only complete copy.

All the texts have been public since 1975, and are available online (in English, for example, at gnosis.org^[3]).

Notes

Coordinates: 26°03′N, 32°15′E

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