dahshur, town located on the left bank of the Nile about 15 miles (23 km) south of Giza. The importance of the town in ancient Egypt is evidenced by the pyramids of the Fourth Dynasty (2575-2465 B.C.), Twelfth Dynasty (1991-1783), and Thirteenth Dynasty (1783-1640) that still exist at the site.
Although there are no references in Coptic or Christian-Arabic literature to a Christian community in Dahshur in the pre-Arabic period, The Churches and Monasteries of Egypt speaks of a Church of the Virgin Mary in the town that was renovated in the time of Patriarch isaac (686-689) and Bishop Gregory of al-Qays. This suggests that Dahshur knew Christianity in the Byzantine era. Parts of the Church of the Virgin Mary were taken to build a mosque in itfih in 1139 (The Churches, fol. 54a). Elsewhere the author says there was a Church of Moses with an accompanying monastery in the district of Dahshur. Neither the church nor the monastery existed as such in his day; the church had been converted into a mosque and the Nile had flooded the monastery (The Churches, fol. 53a).