The Supplements series of the Journal of Juristic Papyrology is one of the centers of Nubian studies. Deptuła's volume is the third supplement in a series on Banganarti, one of the most important sites in the study of Christian Nubia. Banganarti, now in northern Sudan, was in the heartland of Christian Nubia, not far from its capital city of Dongola. Nearly two decades of Polish expeditions there have uncovered two important churches, known as the Lower and Upper Churches. This volume presents the evidence from the wall inscriptions of the Lower Church, which saw three phases of construction before being razed and filled to make way for the Upper Church. The bulk of the texts come from the third phase of the Lower Church, from the late eighth or early ninth century to the tenth/eleventh century.

This book is thus primarily an edition of texts. Over one hundred pages focus on the edition and commentary of twenty-nine texts from the walls of the Lower Church. The plurality of these, eleven, come from Room 4 (the baptistry) and Room 18 (the extension of the nave opposite the apse). The texts range from the fragmentary—a letter or a few letters in several cases (nos. 7, 8, 9, 16, 18) or a single name in others (nos. 10, 23)—to the substantial—two hymns for Great Lent in over 30 lines (no. 19); two more for Lazarus Saturday in over 40 lines (no. 22); and a third for Great Lent in over 40 (heavily damaged) lines (no. 29).

The hymns are clearly the most important texts in the collection, and the editions are excellent. The challenges for the editor are considerable. In number 29, for example, the longest lines are over twice as long as the shortest, the wall plaster is badly damaged, mold grows on the text, and anywhere from ten to forty letters are missing at the start of many of the lines. The translation is thus comparably spotty. But the result reveals a series of odes in praise of God, calling upon the faithful to prepare for “the time of fasting” (l. 11).

The commentary adduces an impressive range of parallels for analysis: Romanus the Melodist, Theoctistus the Studite, John Mauropous, the Georgian Iadgari, Cosmas of Maiuma, Andrew of Crete, and so on. I have the impression—perhaps unscientific—that the editor frequently finds no verbatim parallels for the Lower Church hymns, pointing to similarities instead. Is this an indication of Nubian creativity, of the complexity of the Christian hymnographic family tree, or of the still incomplete nature of our research into Christian hymnography more generally?

The editions and commentary are followed by an essay—just over thirty pages—on Nubian liturgical poetry and hymns. This essay also provides a register of all liturgical hymns attested elsewhere in Nubia, eighteen in all, the plurality (eight) coming from fragmentary parchments found during the excavations at Qasr Ibrim in northern Nubia. Deptuła's volume thus represents a major advance in our knowledge of the hymnography of Christian Nubia. This provides an opportunity for reassessment of the extant evidence and a surprising conclusion: that hymns are “the largest and richest group of liturgical texts known from Christian Nubia” (141). Singing thus takes center stage in Nubian liturgical practice, and we can conclude that “knowledge of religious poetry was widespread among the faithful” (141).

All of the Lower Church inscriptions are in Greek. Indeed, the larger corpus of Nubian hymns more generally includes only one in Old Nubian and none in Coptic. And almost all of the major genres of hymn known from the Christian East make an appearance, including the troparion, the sticheron, the acrostic, and the canon. This suggests an important historical point, that the infusion of Christian hymnography into Nubia took place prior to the emergence of the Coptic poetic forms in the ninth century. While some elements of Nubian hymnography suggest Jerusalem as the ultimate origin, circulation to Nubia “is very likely to have taken place via Egypt” (145). It is possible that some of the Greek hymns are local compositions, but, ultimately, the Banganarti Lower Church presents evidence for “a coherent collection [of hymns] reflecting the practices and tendencies known from other parts of the Mediterranean” (146).

This volume began as a dissertation defended in 2019 at the University of Warsaw. It has fifteen pages of plates, both color and black-and-white, including a map of Nubia; several charts of Banganarti's Lower Church; and pictures of the texts and accompanying wall art. The translation is generally well done, although occasional typographical errors pop up throughout. Epigraphic editions and commentary do not make easy reading. Even expert readers can struggle with such phrases as “sloping ogival majuscule.” Hymnographic vocabulary compounds the problem, and the uninitiated will wilt under the weight of the triodion, menaion, tropologion, heirmos, and so on.

Despite these difficulties, Deptuła has made a significant contribution to the religious history of Christian Nubia. Against Bogdan Żurawski, the director of excavations at Banganarti, she argues that no amount of light in Room 18 of the Lower Church could have made the wall hymns legible enough to serve as a singing aid. They must have had “purely symbolic meaning emphasizing the sacred character of the space in which they were located” (116). Deptuła's work on these hymns thus puts them in the heart of a larger Nubian tradition, in which the written word transforms physical space, bringing the protective power of God, his saints, and his angels into the service of the faithful on earth below. The crypt of the Archbishop Georgios at nearby Dongola, for example, is covered in prayers to protect the soul of the deceased, transforming the entire crypt into a protective amulet. Deptuła's hymns show that song, in its inscribed form, can play the same transformative role.