Faras

Faras, also called Pachoras, was an important city of Lower Nubia on the Nile. It had been a center of Christian Nobadia and remained the seat of the northern eparch after Nobadia became part of Makuria. Its cathedral expressed the city's religious and political importance.

Layers of the cathedral's wall paintings date from the eighth to the fourteenth century and depict bishops, rulers, saints and biblical scenes. In the later years of Christian Nubia, Faras appears to have declined, with the administrative center moving to the more defensible site of Qasr Ibrim. The cathedral and its paintings nevertheless bear witness to the long life of the Nubian church and its artistic traditions.