Skete - Locations of The Earliest Skete Monasteries

Locations of The Earliest Skete Monasteries

The Scetis valley in Egypt (Now known as the Wadi al-Natrun) is twenty-two miles long and lies west of the Nile River in the Libyan Desert. The name Scetis comes from the Coptic word Shi-het and the translation is “to weigh the heart”. The valley lies slightly below sea level and is dotted with oases and marshes. Despite the low elevation and water resources Scetis valley was a dangerous place and early writings are replete with travelers who went astray and died trying to cross it.

The monasteries of the Scetis valley were not the large centralized communities that would come to define monasteries in the Middle Ages. Instead the Scetis monasteries should be thought of as a collection of hermits who for the most part lived separately, but would come together for weekly prayer, and holy holidays. These small cells could be close together or widely scattered making exact locations of these earliest dwelling hard to pin point. Later when major buildings or towers are erected the locations become easier to find, but the original locations of the early monks become even harder to know with perfect certainty. Modern scholars now estimate the most famous of these monasteries, the Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great to be roughly 92 kilometers North West of Cairo.