Cairo Attractions
Description
Venue: Coptic Museum When: Daily
More than an archive of Coptic history, the Coptic Museum offers a case study in the formative years of a major religion that grew, intermingled, and sometimes borrowed from that of an ancient religion that it was replacing.
Coptic was the name given by 16th and 17th-century Europeans to the Christian minority in Egypt, and to their language, the latest phase in the history of the ancient Egyptian language. Following suggestions at the end of the 19th century, in 1914 the Coptic Museum was founded by Marcus Simaika (1864-1944), a wealthy Copt and leading figure in encouraging Coptic interest in the Coptic past. The Church provided the land for the museum, in Old Cairo, against the walls of the ancient Roman fortress, as well as many of the exhibits.
With most of the ancient churches of Egypt destroyed or rebuilt, the Coptic Museum is the only chance to see this part of both Egypt's and Christianity's history. It houses the world's most important examples of Coptic art. Many artefacts show how old representation techniques were used by the first Christians. Examples of this is how the ankh-symbol (like a cross with a loop on top) was reworked into a Christian cross, how Mary with a sucking infant Jesus was shaped after the prototype of Isis breastfeeding Horus and how crosses and Horus hawks were put together on a basket-weave capital.
The most important part of the museum is probably the collection of scripts, which include papyrus sheets of the Gnostic gospels found at Nag Hammadi in 1945, and the Coptic Psalter, the oldest preserved codex in the world.
More than an archive of Coptic history, the Coptic Museum offers a case study in the formative years of a major religion that grew, intermingled, and sometimes borrowed from that of an ancient religion that it was replacing.
Coptic was the name given by 16th and 17th-century Europeans to the Christian minority in Egypt, and to their language, the latest phase in the history of the ancient Egyptian language. Following suggestions at the end of the 19th century, in 1914 the Coptic Museum was founded by Marcus Simaika (1864-1944), a wealthy Copt and leading figure in encouraging Coptic interest in the Coptic past. The Church provided the land for the museum, in Old Cairo, against the walls of the ancient Roman fortress, as well as many of the exhibits.
With most of the ancient churches of Egypt destroyed or rebuilt, the Coptic Museum is the only chance to see this part of both Egypt's and Christianity's history. It houses the world's most important examples of Coptic art. Many artefacts show how old representation techniques were used by the first Christians. Examples of this is how the ankh-symbol (like a cross with a loop on top) was reworked into a Christian cross, how Mary with a sucking infant Jesus was shaped after the prototype of Isis breastfeeding Horus and how crosses and Horus hawks were put together on a basket-weave capital.
The most important part of the museum is probably the collection of scripts, which include papyrus sheets of the Gnostic gospels found at Nag Hammadi in 1945, and the Coptic Psalter, the oldest preserved codex in the world.
Cairo Information
Cairo Tourist Office
Address: Misr Travel Tower, Abbassia Square, Cairo, Egypt
Phone: +20 (0) 2 285 4509 or +20 (0) 2 284 1970
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Looking for things to do around Cairo? Here are some of the events and attractions happening in the area.
| Aida at Giza |
Oct 2008 (annual) Pyramids at Giza |
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