Coptic Museum

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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 1 Background 2 Collection 2.1 Nag Hammadi Library 3 See also 4 External links 5 References 6 Further reading

[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] Morcos Pasha Smeika was followed by Dr Togo Mina and then by Dr Pahor Labib, the first to have the title of Director of the Coptic Museum.

[edit] Collection

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

• Coptic Cairo
• Coptic Orthodox Church
• Coptic history
• Coptology

[edit] External links

• Coptic Museum website (in English)
• Kamil, Jill. Coptic Museum countdown. El-Ahram Weekly. No. 778. 19 - 25 January 2006.
• Kamel, Seif. Coptic Museum in Cairo. Tour Egypt.

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

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

Coordinates: 30°00′22″N 31°13′52″E / 30.006°N 31.231°E / 30.006; 31.231