27°12′N31°06′E / 27.200°N 31.100°E / 27.200; 31.100Manqabad also spelled Mankabad (
Arabic: منقباد, from
Coptic: ⲙⲁⲛⲕⲁⲡⲱⲧ, romanized: place of cup[1]) is a town in
Upper Egypt, near the city of
Asyut. A military station was located in the town which was referred to as "beyond civilization", being the last vestige of the
Nile River Valley before the southern desert. In the 1940s, the station had 3000 officers and soldiers, including a number of whom like
Gamal Abdel Nasser,
Khaled Mohieddin and
Anwar Sadat who would become members of the
Free Officers Movement.[2] In 1965, an ancient
Coptic site was accidentally found at Manqabad and major excavations were undertaken there in 1976, 1984, and 1995. Several churches and chapels dating from the 7th to 8th centuries were excavated.[3]
Surname
Manqabad is also the town of origin of the
Manqabadi (sometimes spelled "Mankabady" or "Mankbadi") family, which was formerly one of the oldest Upper Egyptian nobilities.
Du Bois, Shirley Graham (1972), Gamal Abdel Nasser, son of the Nile: a biography, The Third Press,
ISBN978-0-87395-080-0
Immerzeel, Mat (2004), Coptic studies on the threshold of a new millennium: proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Coptic Studies, Peeters Publishers,
ISBN90-429-1409-2