Nag Hammadi

City in Qena, Egypt

Nag Hammadi نجع حمادي
City
Aluminium Stadium in Nag Hammadi
26°03′N 32°15′E / 26.050°N 32.250°E / 26.050; 32.250
Country	Egypt
Governorate	Qena
Area
• Total	103.9 sq mi (269.2 km²)
Population (2023)
• Total	660,690 ^[1]
• Urban	61,737
• Rural	598,953
Time zone	UTC+2 (EST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+3

Nag Hammadi (/ˌnɑːɡ həˈmɑːdi/ NAHG hə-MAH-dee; Arabic: نجع حمادى Nagʿ Ḥammādī) is a city and markaz in Upper Egypt. It is located on the west bank of the Nile in the Qena Governorate, about 80 kilometres (50 mi) north-west of Luxor. The city had a population of close to 61,737 as of 2023^[update].

History

The town of Nag Hammadi was found on the site of older villages Ansan (Arabic: انسان) and al-Luaqi (Arabic: اللواقي)^[2] in the 19th century and was named after its founder, Mahmoud Pasha Hammadi, a member of the Hammadi family in Sohag, Egypt. Mahmoud Pasha Hammadi was a major landholder in Sohag, and known for his strong opposition to the British rule in Egypt beginning in 1882.

In the city of Nag Hammadi, there is the palace of Prince Youssef Kamal, a member of the royal family (the family of Muhammad Ali Pasha), which overlooks the Nile River and is now an archaeological site.^[3]

Nag Hammadi is about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) west of ancient Chenoboskion (Ancient Greek: Χηνοβόσκιον) The "Nag Hammadi Library", an important collection of 2nd-century Gnostic texts, was found at Jabal al-Ṭārif near Nag Hammadi in 1945.^[4]

The city was the site of the Nag Hammadi Massacre in January 2010, in which eight Coptic Christians were shot dead by three men.^[5] In total, nineteen Coptic Christians were attacked.^[5]^[6]

Economy

Sugar and aluminium are produced in Nag Hammadi. The Nag Hammadi Sugar factory was built in 1895-1897 by French contractors Cail and Fives.^[7] It is still in operation in 2018. Egyptalum is one of the largest aluminium producer in the Middle East. Wood particleboard is manufactured from sugar cane bagasse.

References

^ "عدد السكان التقديري" (PDF). Retrieved 27 October 2023.
^ "Carte geographique de l'Egypte et des pays environnans by Pierre Jacotin". PAThs – Archaeological Atlas of Coptic Literature. 1818.
^ "Nag Hammadi palace re-opens". Ahram Online. 3 October 2019. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
^ James M. Robinson (1988). The Nag Hammadi Library. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco.. "The Nag Hammadi Library consists of twelve books, plus eight leaves removed from a thirteenth book in late antiquity and tucked inside the front cover of the sixth. These eight leaves comprise a complete text, an independent treatise taken out of a book of collected essays". (p. 10). "nag-hammadi.com". Archived from the original on 2007-04-08.
^ ^a ^b "Egypt's anxious Copts 'await next catastrophe'" (25 January 2010) BBC News
^ "Egypt church attack kills Copts". BBC News. 2010-01-07.
^ Undated photo Wikimedia