Housing the world’s largest collection of Coptic Christian artwork, the Coptic Museum in Cairo is a must-see for visitors interested in Christian art or Egyptian history after the pharaohs.

History

The Coptic Museum was founded in 1910 and recently reopened after extensive renovations.

What to See

The Coptic Museum is generally arranged by artistic medium. The first floor has carved stone and stucco, frescoes, and woodwork. The second floor includes textiles, manuscripts, icons, and metalwork.

The collection includes many exquisite works of art, as well as some artifacts notable for their religious syncretism – the gradual transformation of the Egyptian ankh into the cross and divine sun discs into halos, Christian scenes incorporating Egyptian gods, and ancient Egyptian columns transformed into baptismal fonts.

Some of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts, important early copies of Gnostic-Christian writings like the Gospel of Thomas, are upstairs.