This museum portrays the history of the Copt Christians in Egypt.
Recently restored and reorganized, the Coptic Museum is among Egypt’s principal displays of antiquities and houses an outstanding collection of Coptic treasures. It was founded in 1908, with the support of the royal court, as a means of preserving Coptic artefacts and Egypt’s Christian heritage against the acquisitive activities of local and foreign collectors. There was an expansion programme in 1947 that enabled the collection to include a number of small but very valuable objects and items from Coptic churches and monasteries throughout Egypt.
The museum gives an interesting insight into the evolution of Christian (and to some extent secular) art and architecture in Egypt in the period AD 300-1800. As well as demonstrating the interchange of ideas with the larger Islamic community, earlier pieces show how the transition from paganism to Christianity was a gradual process with many Graeco-Roman myths incorporated in proto-Coptic art and sculpture. The displays are arranged thematically across two floors in the New and Old Wings; reckon on about three hours for a thorough viewing or an hour to just whip round. It’s a good idea to go over lunchtime, when the museum is virtually empty. The enclosed garden is neatly laid out with benches and large pieces of old stonework. There is also a giftshop, library and a small café, though the nearby Saint George Café (next to the church of the same name) is a nicer place to relax.
Beginning on the ground floor of the New Wing, go in an anticlockwise direction through the museum. Among the chunky Ahnas sculptures in Room 3 look out for the pediment on the right-hand wall showing the nymph Daphne in the laurel leaves, with pudding-bowl haircut and classic almond-shaped eyes, and further along a frieze containing the faun Pan, both from 3rd/4th century. Room 4 is devoted to early Christian reliefs, which give weight to the suggestion that the Christian cross developed from the pharaonic ankh. Room 5 contains stylized friezes of uniform acanthus and vine leaves from the fifth-century monastery of St Jeremiah in Saqqara, barely eroded either by the desert or by time. In the courtyard is a splendid array of column capitals individually carved into lotus leaves, vines, palm fronds and acanthus (a couple still have traces of paint) and a six-step limestone pulpit (the earliest recorded). Treasures from St Jeremiah continue in Room 6 where a perfectly preserved and fresh-painted niche depicting Christ floating above a seated Virgin Mary steals the show. Pieces from the Monastery of St Apollo in Bawit, probably the richest hoard of church sculpture ever discovered in Egypt, are in Rooms 7, 8 and 9. The lintels, door jambs, panels and dados from Bawit are all exquisite but the highlight is an unusually bright oratory apse showing Christ enthroned by the mythological creatures of the Apocalypse; below, on either side of the virgin and child, the apostles are personalized by their differing facial hair and expressions. Note also the magnificent remains of an arch in Room 9, supported by columns carved with modernistic geometrical designs.
Upstairs in Room 10-11 religious and thematic elements, portrayed through various media, are grouped together. Look in the first case for the weaving of a centaur surrounded by medallions containing baskets of fruit and animals – it is hard to believe that it’s over 1500 years old. The Old and New Testaments are of equal importance in the Coptic faith, and both sets of Biblical stories are represented in the rest of Room 11. At the end of the left wall, particularly impressive is the 11th-century Fayoumi painting showing Adam and Eve among the fruit and foliage of the Garden of Eden, before and after their fall from grace. Room 12 contains liturgical vestments, and then a display of the famed skill of Coptic weavers starts in earnest in Room 13. Remarkably, nothing in the room is older than the 8th century and some remnants are as old as 3rd century. Floral designs, agricultural scenes, human figures, animals and birds are prominent subjects, giving Coptic textiles a personal feel as well as divulging detailed information about the society that created them. Room 15 displays the Nag Hammadi Codices. Only two pages are on show, plus some leather book-bindings, but this is the primary source for study of Gnosticism and early Christian mysticism. The theme of writing continues in Room 16 with some marvellous illuminated manuscripts, a variety of writing accoutrements and some messages on ostracon (pot-shards) that deal with grain sales, health enquiries and other matters of daily life. Room 17 is devoted to the 1600-year-old Psalter found near Beni Suef, then it’s a quick dash through the tube linking the New Wing to the Old, via a small display about the hermitages found at Kellia. It’s worth looking at the diagram of a reconstructed hermitage, which is very far removed from any previous notions you might have had of a hermit’s cell.
In the Old Wing, the building itself is as rewarding as the artefacts. The ceiling carvings throughout this section are from Coptic houses in Old Cairo and have been incorporated into the building along with panels and tiles. Coptic woodwork was very varied and ornate, heavy work being executed in acacia and palm and finer work in imported cedar, pine and walnut. Ebony too was very popular. A frieze in Room 18 depicts a large crocodile and further on in Room 19 look for the pull-along wooden toys, fashioned into horses, an elephant and birds, which are presumed to come from children’s graves. Rooms 20-22 require you to have saved some energy and are a true highpoint of the museum. They contain the icons, spanning a huge range of iconographic styles – Byzantine, Greek, Cretan, Syrian and more. Seek out the icon of St Barbara, from the nearby church dedicated to her, leaning on a Rapunzel-esque tower and dressed in the Western medieval style. Room 23 has some unimaginably heavy and ornate keys from the monastery doors of Middle Egypt, plus jewellery, intriguing lamps fashioned into animal shapes, and a wealth of incense censers – so important in the Coptic liturgy – swinging on chains. The pottery in Room 24 is arranged according to decoration and size. There are red clay jugs, small pots for make-up, and beautifully painted urns and bowls. You might feel by now that the collection of ceramics and glass in Room 25 is mercifully small, but it’s worth lingering over the two-handled miniature flasks that pilgrims used to take holy water back from Abu Menas, depicting the martyred saint between two camels, and marvel at the unbelievably fiddly designs on the base of water jugs used to filter out impurities. After exiting down the stairs, it’s possible to see the old Roman Water Gate that is signed down some steps in the courtyard....
