Coptic Museum

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coptic Museum
Coptic Museum

The Coptic Museum is a museum in Coptic Cairo, Egypt with the largest collection of Egyptian Christian artifacts in the world. It was founded by Morcos Smeika Pasha in 1910 to house Coptic antiquities.[1] The museum traces the history of Christianity in Egypt from its beginnings to the present day. It was erected over a land offered by the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria under the guardianship of Pope Cyril V.

The Coptic museum houses the world's most important examples of Coptic art.[2]

Contents

[edit] Background

Morcos Smeika Pasha founded the Coptic Museum in 1910 after raising funds by public subscription. He used his influential position in the Coptic community to acquire many Coptic artifacts from old Coptic houses. The Egyptian government actively supported the initiative, and by 1947 a new wing was added to house a collection that was kept in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The Coptic Museum was renovated in 1983-84 and again in 2005-06.[3]

[edit] Collection

Coptic Museum entrance
Coptic Museum entrance

The Coptic Museum contains the world's largest collection of Coptic artifacts and artwork. Coptic monuments display a rich mixture of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman traditions,[4] thus providing a link between ancient and Islamic Egypt.[5] The objects are grouped into different mediums, such as stonework, woodwork, metalwork, textiles and manuscripts.[6]. The total number of objects on display is about 15,000 objects[7].

[edit] Nag Hammadi Library

The Coptic Museum also houses a corpus of 1,200 Nag Hammadi manuscripts in a library open to specialist researchers only.[8]

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Coptic Museum brief history
  2. ^ Lastminute
  3. ^ Kamil 1990, 2006
  4. ^ tour egypt
  5. ^ sacred destinations
  6. ^ Kamil 1990, p. 93
  7. ^ Daily star Egypt
  8. ^ Nag Hammadi Library

[edit] Further reading

  • Kamil, Jill (1990). Coptic Egypt: History and a Guide, 2nd ed., Cairo: American University in Cairo. ISBN 9-7742-4242-4. 
  • Meinardus, Otto F. A. (1999). Two Thousand Years of Coptic Christianity, 2nd ed., Cairo: American University in Cairo. ISBN 977-424-511-3.