ABSTRACT
The study of Christian realia has assumed a growing importance in the understanding of early Christianity in recent decades. It is a broad field, covering early Christian architecture and art, and papyrological and epigraphical remains. The study of textual remains has for a long time held pride of place among those scholars of early Christianity interested in the material evidence pertaining to the formative stages of the Jesus movement. Documentary papyrology deals with a very heterogeneous, but also extremely rich, assemblage of diverse materials. Onomastics was often an obviously primary object of study for scholars interested in tracing the spread of Christianity in Egypt. Ancient inscriptions are extant in such a plentiful number that their systematic study has so far encountered even bigger obstacles than that of papyri. However, given the broader geographical space covered by epigraphical materials, their analysis can offer even more significant results than those of Egyptian papyrological materials.
