Andrews states his information is derived from an earlier work, Les Femmes, les eunuques, et les guerriers du Soudan, published by a French explorer, Count Raoul du Bisson, in 1868, though this detail does not appear in Du Bissons book.Remondinos claims were repeated in similar form by Henry G. Spooner in 1919, in the American Journal of Urology and Sexology. Spooner, an associate of William J. Robinson, referred to the monastery as "Abou Gerbe in Upper Egypt".According to Remondino, Spooner, and several later sources, the Coptic priests sliced the penis and testicles off Nubian or Abyssinian slave boys around the age of eight. The boys were captured from Abyssinia and other areas in Sudan like Darfur and Kordofan, then brought into Sudan and Egypt. During the operation, the Coptic clergyman chained the boys to tables, then, after slicing off their sexual organs, stuck a piece of bamboo into the urethra and submerged them in neck-high sand under the sun. The survival rate was ten percent. Slave traders made especially large profits off eunuchs from this region.However, neither "Abou Gerbe", as an actual monastery, nor "Mount Ghebel Eter", as an actual location, are known. Additionally, the cited references from Andrews, Remondino and Spooner appear circular, originating in tales told by a single French explorer. The later cited sources simply copy the earlier ones. Further, the 90% mortality rate seems economically improbable, given that it would require that markets paid at least 15 times the value of an uncastrated slave boy for a eunuch slave boy.
253): early Christian theologian, allegedly castrated himself based on his reading of the Gospel of Matthew 19:12 ("For there are eunuchs, who were born so from their mothers womb: and there are eunuchs, who were made so by men: and there are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. He that can take, let him take it."). Despite the fact that the early Christian theologian Tertullian wrote that Jesus was a eunuch, there is no corroboration in any other early source. (The Skoptsy did, however, believe it to be true.) Chusdazat (died 344): He served King Shapur II, who killed him for declaring his Christian identity. Dorotheus of Tyre (255–362): A bishop who attended the Council of Nicaea, was exiled by Diocletian and Julian, and was martyred. Eutropius (died 399): only eunuch known to have attained the highly distinguished office of Roman Consul. Chrysaphius (died 450): chief minister of Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II, architect of imperial policy towards the Huns. Narses (478–573): general of Byzantine emperor Justinian I, responsible for destroying the Ostrogoths in 552 at the Battle of Taginae in Italy and reconquering Rome for the empire. Solomon (480s/490s–544): general and governor of Africa under Justinian I.
Gao Lishi (684–762): a loyal and trusted friend of Tang emperor Xuanzong. Li Fuguo (704–762): Tang eunuch who began another era of eunuch rule. Yu Chaoen (722–770): Tang eunuch who began his career as army supervisor. Staurakios (died 800): chief associate and minister of the Byzantine empress Irene of Athens.