This article offers a contextualizing analysis of archeological, iconographical and epigraphical data discovered mostly in the late 1990s at Dayr as-Suryān in Wādī-n-Naṭrūn between Cairo and Alexandria. It highlights the historical relations between the Egyptian (Coptic) and Syrian Christian communities and the presence of Syrian monks at the monastic site in question, as well as in Cairo and in Egypt generally.