al-Qasr wa as-Sayyad (Arabic: القصر و الصياد) is a village in Nag Hammadi district of Qena Governorate, Egypt.

[2][3][4][5][6] The Nag Hammadi library, a collection of 2nd-century Gnostic texts discovered in 1945, was found at Jabal al-Ṭārif in the Nile cliffs to the north-west.

Pachomius retreated to this place, having ceased his military activity sometime around 310-315 (the approximate figure given is 314), and converted to Christianity whilst dwelling in the desert.

A monastic community formed around the saint for the purpose of spiritual guidance, beginning in Pispir and from there moving eastward.

[11] The only remains of masonry consist of a dilapidated quay, amidst whose ruins is a stone bearing a Greek inscription, apparently of the time of Antoninus Pius; from which we learn that the individual, by whose order it was sculptured, had executed some work "at his own expense;" ...[2]