This church can still be traced. It is the Basilica of the Crypt (Plan I p. 196) date 350, to which, at the end of the century, an immense extension was added by the Emperor Arcadius. What caused so rapid a growth? Water. There were springs in the limestone that have since dried up, and that must have had curative powers. Baths were built, some of them opening out of a church (Plan II). Little flasks, stamped with the Saint’s image, were filled from the sacred source by his tomb. The environs were irrigated, houses, walls, cemeteries built, until in the pure air a sacred city sprang up, where religion was combined with hygiene. Nor did the saint only protect invalids. He was also the patron of the caravans that passed by him from Alexandria to the Wady Natrun, the Siwan Oasis, and Tripoli, and so he is always seen between two camels, who crouch in adoration because he guides them aright. By the 6th century he had become god of the Lybian Desert, then less deserted than now, and his fame, like that of his predecessor Serapis, had travelled all round the Mediterranean, and procured him worshippers as far as Rome and France. Islam checked the cult. But as late as the year 1,000, an Arab traveller saw the great double basilica still standing. Lights burned in the shrine night and day, and there was still left a little trickle of “the beautiful water of St. Menas that drives away pain.” The site, entirely forgotten, was discovered in 1905. It has been carefully excavated. Little more than the ground plans of the buildings remain, but they are most interesting, and the marble decorations delightful. [Illustration: ST. MENAS – PLAN II. The Sacred Baths] _The Sanctuary Group._ This lies a little to the south of the excavators’ huts. Combined length, nearly 400 ft. In the centre is the original church covering the tomb. To its east is the impressive addition of Arcadius; to its west a baptistery. On its north side a monastery. The best view of the group is from a mound outside the baptistery. The general arrangement is quite clear. (Plan I, p. 196). Taken in detail:— (i). _Church of Arcadius._—Length nearly 200 feet. A cruciform basilica with a nave and two aisles, and aisled transepts. Over the intersection was a dome, beneath which, now much ruined by its fall, is the High Altar. Behind the altar are curved steps that supported the ecclesiastical throne. Both altar and throne are in a square enclosure where the priests and singers stood; a narrow alley connects it with the nave. The eastern apse has been used for burials.