Cairo

"This little world, the great Cairo... the most admirable and the greatest city seen upon the earth... the Microcosmus of the greater world..." William Lithgow, 1614
Founded on the site of Babylon, near the ruins of ancient Memphis, Cairo has been the largest city in Africa for centuries. Modern Cairo encompasses many former cities and their monuments: the pyramids of the pharaohs; early Christian monasteries and churches; Salah al-din's Citadel; mosques of the Mamluke and Ottoman sultans Five thousand years of culture are concentrated here, at the center of three continents. Travel through time in a city that is a living index to civilization. Enjoy the comforts of a cosmopolitan twentieth-century capital. Cairo, a microcosm of the greater world.
" The Nile does not change. Indeed I know of no place where everything changes as much as it does here and nothing is ever changed... you feel quite at home." Henry Adams describing Cairo, 1898
Today's skyline mixes minarets and palm trees with art deco villas and multicoloured neon-but you can still see the sunset over the Nile. Cairo has a unique atmosphere: both exciting and relaxed. The city pulses with life while the Nile flows on to the sea. "The Mother of the world" is one of the friendliest (and safest) cities in the world: Egyptian hospitality will ensure that, wherever you come from, you'll feel quite at home.
"... a palimpsest, in which the Bible is written over Herodotus, and the Koran over that" Lady Duff Gordon on Egypt, 1865

Egypt map

Museums in Egypt

• The Egyptian MuseumMaydan at-Tahrir, CairoTel. (202) 5782448 , (202) 5782452 Fax. (202) 579697E-mail : mailto:egymu1@idsc.net.eg;egymu10@idsc.net.eg, mailto:egymu2@idsc.net.eg;egymu10@idsc.net.eg, mailto:egymu3@idsc.net.eg;egymu10@idsc.net.eg, mailto:egymu4@idsc.net.eg;egymu10@idsc.net.eg, mailto:egymu5@idsc.net.eg;egymu10@idsc.net.eg, mailto:egymu6@idsc.net.eg;egymu10@idsc.net.eg, mailto:egymu7@idsc.net.eg;egymu10@idsc.net.egTotal Objects : 142000
• The Museum of Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil and his wife 1 Kafour St. - Orman Post Office - Giza - EgyptTel. (202) 3362378,(202) 3362358,(202) 3362379Fax (202) 3362376Total Objects : 1031
• Coptic MuseumFakhry Abd el Nour street No4. Abbassia. Cairo, Egypt.Tel. (202) 3639742,(202) 3628766Total Objects : 15250
• Islamic Museum352 Ahmed Maher Sq. - Bab El-Khalq, CairoTel. (202) 3901520Total Objects : 86438
• The Greco-Roman MuseumMathaf El Romani street, Downtown.Tel. (203) 4865820,(203) 4876434
• Agricultural MuseumMinistry of Agriculture, Duqqi, CairoTel. (202) 7608682
• Mukhtar MuseumGazirah, near Galaa BridgeTel. (202) 7366665Total Objects : 198
• Museum of Modern ArtGazirah Exibition GroundsTel. (202) 7366665Total Objects : 6266
• Shawqi Museum 6 Ahmed Shawqi St. between Murad St. and the Gizah Corniche (Gamal Abd an_Nasir St.) Tel. (202) 5729479Total Objects : 1450
• Mahmoud Saeed Museum6 Mohamed Saeed St Gankleese AlexandriaTel. (202) 586688Total Objects : 48
• Abdeen Palace MuseumAbdeen Palace - Abdeen Tel. +20-2-857938
• Amr Ibrahim Palace (Qasr Ali Ibrahim)Corner of Gezira St. & Shaykh alMarsafi St.(Next to the Marriot Hotel), Zamalek , CairoTel. 987495
• Ethnological Museum109 Qasr al-Ayni St.(Gr.floor of Geographical Society building), CairoTel. +20-2-3545450
• Higher Institute of Folklore Museum19 Borsa al-Tawfiqiya St., CairoTel. +20-2-5752460
• Gawharah Palace Museum (Qasr al-Gawharah)Citadel, CairoTel. +20-2-5116187 Total Objects : 955
• Gazirah MuseumGazirah Exibition Grounds,next to the National Cultural Centre ., CairoTel. +20-2-806982 Total Objects : 4079
• Helwan Corner Museum (Farouq's Corner Museum)HelwanTel. +20-2-3405198, 783573
• Manastirli Palace and the NilometerSouthern end of Rawdah, Cairo
• Manyal Palace Museum1 Saray St. - Manial, CairoTel. +20-2-987495 Total Objects : 31934
• Military MuseumCitadelTel. +20-2-5129619
• Musafir-KhanaDarb at-Tablawi,Gamaliyyah,behind the Mosque of Sayyidna Hussayn.Tel. +20-2-920472
• Museum of the People's AssemblyMeglis ash-Shaab Building, Meglis ash-Shaab St.
• Mustafa Kamil MuseumMaydan Salah ad-Din, below the CitadelTel. +20-2-919943 Total Objects : 152
• Nagi MuseumThe Begining of Cairo/Alexandria Desert RoadTel. +20-2-3853484 Total Objects : 1092
• National Museum for CivilisationPlanetarium building, Gazirah Exibition Grounds,next to the National Cultural CentreTel. +20-2-3405198 Total Objects : 1681
• National Police MuseumThe Citadel
• Royal Carriage Museum 82 Twenty-Six July St. Bulaq Tel. +20-2-774437 Total Objects : 5685
• Saad Zaghlul Museum Bayt al-Umma,2 Saad Zaghlul St., Munira Tel. +20-2-3545399 Total Objects : 1615
• Solar Boat Museum Beside Cheops Pyramid, Gizah Tel. +20-2-3857928
• State Railway Museum Bab al-Hadid St. (Main Railway Station)Tel. +20-2-977393
• Hadiqat al-Asmak MuseumHadiqat al Asmak - Gabalaya St. - Zamalek
• Al_Matariyya Obelisk MuseumMasalet al-Matariyya
• Palace Of Royal Jelewries (Kasr al_Mogawharat al-Malakiya) Zizinia - East Zone
• Naval MuseumQaytbay's Citadel
• Al-Muntaza Palace Museum Al-Muntaza , Alex.
• Ras al-Tin Palace Ras al-Tin
• The Hydrobiological Museum Qayt-bay
• Aquatics Museum
• Elephantine Island's Museum (Aswan Museum) Elephantine Island Tel. +20-97-322066 Total Objects : 3328
• Luxor Museum of Ancient ArtCorniche El-Nil St. - Luxor Tel. 380269 Total Objects : 843
• Bayet Aisha Fahmi (Mogamaa El-Fonoon)Maahad El-Swissry St. - Zamalek Tel. +20-2-3408211
• Taha Hussien Museum Taha Hussien Madkour St. - Haram Tel. +20-2-852818 Total Objects : 247
• Al-Mansora Museum (Dar Ibn Luqman)Daqahlia - Moafi Sq. - Dar Ibn Luqman
• San El-Haggar Museum San El-Haggar - Sharqiya
• Hariya Razna MuseumHariya Razna - ZaqaziqTel. +20-55-322373
• Ahmed Urabi MuseumHariya Razna - ZaqaziqTotal Objects : 14
• Donshway Museum Total Objects : 165
• Saif & Adham WanlyTotal Objects : 3166
• Esmailiya MuseumMatthaf St. from Salah Salem St.Tel. +20-64-22749 Total Objects :
• Port-Said Museum 23rd. of July St.
• Menia Museum
• Mallawy Museum Galaa St. Tel. +20-86-652061 Total Objects : 709
• Rasheed Museum Tel. +20-3-20246
• The New Valley Museum
• Tanta Museum Mustafa El-Gendy St. - Tanta Tel. +20-4-319003 Total Objects : 1759
• Airport Museum Cairo Airport Tel. +20-2-2914288/4277/4787 Total Objects : 129
• Ancient Police Museum The Citadel Total Objects : 1774
Copyrights © 1995 - 2005 Egyptian Cabinet, Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC) - Egypt

The Arabic Language

Arabic belongs to a language group standing between the Southern Semitic group (includes Ancient Sabaen, Sokotran, Tigre and Amharic) and the North-West Semitic group (including Hebrew and Aramaic though probably more closely related to the latter. These are branches of the Semitic language family, a sub-division of the Afro-Asiatic language family, which includes within it Ancient Egyptian and Berber. It is first recorded in Assyrian Chronicles of the 9C BC, its literal form appearing slightly later in a script similar to Dedanite. Later texts in the various scripts are found from Mesopotamia to Egypt. During the 3-6C AD, while Arabic was developing in the Arabian Peninsular, its current vernaculars in the North assimilated many words from Aramaic, Persian, Greek and Latin, thus extending the vocabulary greatly. By the 7C, although the language itself was rather uniform amongst the various Arabian tribes and can be termed Classical Arabic that spoken by Quraysh is considered by Arab scholars to have been the most pure. After the revelation of the Quran the Arabs had a model text and during the following centuries scholars, with painstaking thoroughness, standardized the language. The literary Arabic used throughout the Middle East today is the product of this process, though the spoken language has developed into various local dialects.
Copyrights © 1995 - 2005 Egyptian Cabinet, Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC) - Egypt

Modern History of Egypt

French Occupations On the pretext of securing the authority of the Ottoman Sultan in Egypt, and incidentally protecting the interests of the European merchants, Napoleon invaded Egypt in July 1798. In reality, however, the French invasion was another campaign designed to control the land route and ultimately the sea route to India, thwarting the British advances in the Indian Ocean. The French weren’t able to hold the country for long, active local resistance and British intervention forced them to capitulate and leave for Europe by September 1801.


The Mohammed Ali Dynasty As soon as the French evacuated Egypt the Albanian regiment, under their commander Mohammed Ali, revolted against the Ottomans, who were ruling Egypt at the time. The people of Cairo turned to Mohammed Ali to restore order and the Ottoman Sultan duly confirmed their choice naming him viceroy. He founded a dynasty that ruled until June 1952. Mohammed Ali restored public order and engaged upon a reform of education and medical practice. His navy and army were second to none in Europe and managed to create a large Egyptian empire. He was so successful that an attempt to restore the authority of the Ottoman Sultan over Egypt failed. This led to the European intervention, for the British, Russian and Austrian empires hastened to support the "sick man" - meaning the Ottoman Empire - and imposed a new settlement which asserted Ottoman authority, reduced his forces and confiscated his possessions. The only consolation which Mohammed Ali got was that the office of viceroy would be hereditary in his line, developing upon the eldest male.


Mohammed Ali died in August of 1849 and was succeeded by the eldest of his line Abbas I, a grandson. After ruling only for five years, however, Abbas I was murdered in 1854. More popular was the third viceroy, Said Pasha. He granted the charter to build the Suez Canal in 1856 to de Lesseps the French, however, the British were not to be ignored and they were given the concessions for the formation of a telegraph company and the Bank of Egypt. Said incurred the National Debt by borrowing from the European bankers. He died in 1863 and was succeeded by Ismail, a son of Mohammed Ali’s brother. During the reign of Ismail many great schemes for modernization of Egypt were undertaken, covering the administrative system, education, communications and transport. These plans however, involved further European interference and heavy taxation of the population. Citing Egypt’s foreign debts, France and Britain imposed a receivers commission, which forced Ismail to reduce his army and surrender both public and private property, including all of Egypt’s shares in the Suez Canal. In 1879 the controlling powers appealed to the sultan to depose of Ismail and name his eldest son Tawfik his successor.


British Occupation Ismail’s son Tawfik wasn’t able to withstand either European pressure or the nationalist fervor that arose to resist it. Using an internal political crisis and the protection of foreign interests as their excuse, the British finally intervened outright. Although their presence in Egypt was supposed to be temporary, their occupation of the country lasted more than 70 years. Tawfik Pasha reformed the Egyptian economy and relinquished financial control to the British who began to run the government of the country. Egyptian nationalists, horrified at Tawfik's submission to the British, forced him to appoint their leader Ahmed Orabi as Minister of War, but the European reaction was swift and violent. Alexandria was shelled and Ismailiyya occupied. Orabi's army was defeated at Tel El Kabir and the British reinstalled Tawfik as a puppet. Orabi was driven into exile and Mustafa Kamil became the leader of the nationalist movement.


British influence over Egypt continued to increase. The country became an economic colony, totally dependent upon the import of British manufactured goods and the export of its raw cotton. Tawfik’s eldest son Abbas II came to the throne in 1892. A young idealist with little political experience, he wished to ease British control of the administration. British’s occupation with recovery of the Sudan from the Mahdiyyah, and their confrontation with the French as a result, left Egypt in relative calm. Abbas II’s 20 years reign is remembered as one of Cairo’s golden ages because of a new building program. At the outbreak of war in 1914, the British declared Egypt a protectorate and deposed of Abbas Helmi, replacing him with his uncle Husayn Kamil, who was govern the title of Sultan. Egypt was thus informed that its 400-year- old role as an Ottoman province had come to an end. When Husayn Kamil died in 1917, the British chose Fuad, Ismail’s sixth son to succeed him. Opposition to British rule crystallized among the elite during the war and was encouraged by Sultan Fuad. A delegation was formed to speak on behalf of the people, but the British refused to give permission to its leader Saad Zaghlul to go to discuss independence. As a result, a mass uprising occurred which is referred to as the 1919 revolution. In 1921, Egypt was declared an independent sovereign state, though the control of the defense, communication, the Sudan and protection of foreign residents remained under British control. In 1923, a constitution was promulgated.


King Fuad died in 1936, and was followed by his son Faruq. Soon after his accession a new treaty was negotiated that abolished British military presence except in time of war to the Suez Canal zone. With the outbreak of World War II, the British reoccupied the country, as the terms of 1936 treaty entitled. Growing Zionist claims in Palestine and the crisis in Lebanon initiated in 1944 an Arab conference in Alexandria, during which the foundations of the Arab league were laid. At the same time, popular resentment against the British increased. In February 1946, the students organized riots and fighting occurred with the British troops. In May the British declared their intention to withdraw troops from Egypt, and by July 1948 an interim measure of self-government was granted. Clashes continued, however, between the Egyptians and the British forces in the Canal Zone. The same year the Arab world suffered a shattering blow when a joint Arab invasion of the newly declared state of Israel was ignominiously defeated by the smaller Israeli army. Ashamed and appalled by the decadence and gross incompetence of their leaders, a group of idealistic young Egyptian officers were to emerge as leaders of a revolution which would alter the course of modern Arab history.
The Egyptian Republic When parliamentary elections were held in 1952 the Wafd Party won the majority of seats and Nahas Pasha as prime minister repealed the 1936 treaty which gave Britain the right to control the Suez Canal. King Farouk dismissed the prime minister, igniting anti-British riots which were put down by the army. This event compelled, a secret group of army officers which became known as the Free Officers, to seize power and force Egypt’s ruler to abdicate in favor of his son, Ahmed Fuad. Eleven month later the young king was likewise dispossessed. Egypt was declared a republic and was ruled by General Mohammed Naguib. In July 1954 negotiations with the British resulted in an agreement to withdraw all foreign troops within 20 months, although the bases in the Canal Zone were to be kept operational.


On 22 June Nasser was elected president and one of the immediate actions was the redistribution of land among the farmers. Land reform was put into effect, breaking up the large feudal estates into smaller parcels of land and redistributing land to the fellaheen who for millennia had been an underclass of serfs. Prior to the revolution, Egypt had been an elitist society with few if any state-sponsored benefits to the large majority of the population. The new government established extensive free educational programs for both boys and girls and developed the country's medical infrastructure. In 1956, to compensate for the abrogation of promises from the British and the Americans to help build the new High Dam at Aswan, the Suez Canal company was nationalized. The Canal was a symbol of European power to Europeans as well as to Egyptians. The French and British therefore responded three months later by supporting Israel, which had already conducted raids within Egyptian territory several times. This tripartite aggression gave them control of Sinai and the Canal Zone. The UN ordered an immediate cease-fire and under pressure from the USA the aggressors agreed to withdraw. In 1957 all commercial agencies, banks and companies were fully Egyptainsed in management and capital. On June 5th 1967, another Israeli attack resulted in the loss of Sinai Peninsula. Israel continued its aerial attacks until 1970 when a truce was agreed upon. Nasser expressed vehement opposition to Israel and outspoken criticism of the West. His relations with the West, however, were complex. He knew that he could never develop Egypt without large infusions of foreign aid and he knew that the West was the most reliable source of this aid. Yet he came to discover that the more anti-Western his stance appeared to be, the more foreign aid he was offered by western countries to buy his moderation. When at one point in his regime he became more conciliatory to the west, his foreign aid dropped dramatically. As a founding-leader of the Non-aligned movement Nasser could have it both ways. Along with India's Nehru and Indonesia's Sukarno, Gamal Abdel Nasser became a major international power-broker in the politics of the developing world. His death in 1970 of a heart attack sent shock waves throughout the Arab world. In a stunning display of emotion, millions of Egyptians followed his funeral procession through the streets of Cairo. Anwar al-Sadat, one of the group of officers and Nasser’s vice-president ruled the country after Nasser’s death. After much planning Israeli-occupied Sinai was invaded by the Egyptian army on 6 October 1973. The Egyptian attack against the Israeli forces was unprecedented success and revolutionized the tactics of warfare. Shortly after restrictions on foreign investment and exchange control were lifted and an Open Door Policy was launched. Following victory in Sinai Sadat took the courageous step of negotiating peace talks on the withdrawal of Israel from the rest of the occupied Sinai and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Sadat was succeeded by the President Hosni Mubarak. He started quickly to rebuilt both his country’s infrastructure and its relations with the rest of the world. Mubarak accelerated the process of privatization and developed Egypt’s tourist infrastructure which enhanced its lucrative tourist industry. More impressively, he managed to resume diplomatic and trade relations with moderate Arab countries while maintaining the treaty with Israel. By the end of the 1980s Egypt was once again playing a leading role in Arab politics. Egypt’s vital role in support of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in the Gulf War combined with death of socialist-communist influence in the Arab world returned the country to the center of Middle Eastern politics.
Copyrights © 1995 - 2005 Egyptian Cabinet, Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC) - Egypt

Islamic Egypt

In the winter of AD 639, Amr ibn al As leading an Arab army coming from Syria entered Egypt. The Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and Syria were already under Muslim control, and the Khalif Omar had turned his armies against the two great hostile empires on his flanks - Persia in the east and Byzantium in the west.
In AD 640, Amr advanced not towards the capital Alexandria, but towards a more strategic goal, the fortress of Babylon, about 12km south of the point where the Nile divides to form the Delta. He defeated the Byzantine forces at Heliopolis then he encircled Babylon which was captured in April 641. Alexandria was Amr's next goal and by September 642 it was his by a treaty. The Copts, who were reconciled to the Arabs who had rid them of Greek Melkites and allowed them to elect their own Patriarch, welcomed the Arabs.

On the orders of the Khalif Omar, a town was built beside the fortress of Babylon called Fustat. It was from Fustat, instead of Alexandria, that Egypt was administrated as a province of the Khalifate, first the Khalifs in Medina, then the Ummayyads in Damascus followed by the Abbasids in Baghdad.
From the conquest in 642 AD until 868, Egypt was a province ruled either from Medina, Damascus or Baghdad, but from that time, 868, Egypt gained a sort of an autonomy when two dynasties, the Tulunids followed by the Ikhshids, ruled Egypt as a separate country until the Fatimids.



The Fatimids (969-1171) were the only Shiite's who ever ruled Egypt. They were called as such since they claimed descent from Fatimah (the daughter of the Prophet Mohammed) and Ali the fourth Khalif. During the Fatimids' period, the Crusaders came to in the Middle East and started occupying a great part of the Arab lands. The two ruling dynasties that followed the Fatimids as rulers of Egypt were the Ayyubids and the Mameluks. They were the rulers who carried the responsibility of fighting the Crusaders.
The Mameluks were defeated by the Ottomans (1516-17) and Egypt returned back to being a province and yielded to the Ottomans, which like the rest of the Empire that was ruled from Istanbul, until the French occupation (1798-1801). Mohammed Ali, who started a dynasty that ruled Egypt till 1952, when the last member of his family was exiled out of the country by the revolution of The 23rd of July, followed the Ottomans.
Copyrights © 1995 - 2005 Egyptian Cabinet, Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC) - Egypt

Graeco_Roman History of Egypt

When the Greek conqueror, Alexander the Great, entered Egypt in 332 BC, he intended to found a universal empire. At its height, Alexander's brief empire included all of Egypt, Greece, Thrace, Turkey, the Near East, Mesopotamia, and Asia all the way to India. Nothing of the kind has ever been seen before or since. The Egyptians thought of Alexander as their great liberator, but soon they found themselves under Alexander as their king. He built a magnificent new capital at the very mouth of the Nile on the Mediterranean. And since Alexander was above everything else a modest man, he named his new capital, Alexandria.But the super-human empire that Alexander built did not last longer than his lifetime. After its death, the empire divided among his most powerful generals, and Egypt came under the control of the general, Philip Arrhidaeus, and then Alexander IV, and finally Ptolemy I.Ptolemy I began a new dynasty in Egypt, the last in history, the Thirty-second Dynasty. Although Ptolemy was Greek, he adopted Egyptian customs and the Egyptian theory of kingship. Like the Egyptians, the Ptolemaic kings married their sisters, who were all named Cleopatra ("kleos"="famous", "patris"="parents"). All the Ptolemaic kings, likewise, were named Ptolemy.
Even though they adopted Egyptian customs to a certain degree, the Ptolemaic kings and queens were Greek. They spoke Greek and they thought that Greek culture and peoples were better than Egyptian culture and peoples. Greek became the state language, and cities were renamed. In fact, the word "Egypt" is a Greek word (the Egyptian word is "Kmt" or Kemet). On the whole, native Egyptians occupied the lowest social positions. The Ptolemies, though, as well as their Greek administrators, were highly tolerant and even interested in foreign religions. The most enduring cultural product they produced was a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures; the Ptolemies were interested in the Hebrew religion because of the large number of Jews living in Egypt at the time. Because of this translation, the Hebrew scriptures became one of the most important documents in the history of Western culture; had they ignored the book, it would probably have faded into the dust of history within a few hundred years.The final queen of the Ptolemaic line, Cleopatra VII, fell into a dispute with her half-brother over the succession and invited Julius Caesar and the Romans to intervene. Caesar then brought Egypt under the control of Rome under the nominal queenship of Cleopatra. However, when she sided with Mark Antony against Augustus Caesar and lost, Egypt became a Roman province.
In the long history of Egypt many foreigners dominated the ancient peoples of the Two Lands, but none was more hated than the Romans. Anti-Roman sentiment soon crystallized around a new religion, Christianity, introduced by the evangelist Mark sometime in the middle of the first century AD. These Egyptian Christians, called "Copts," saw this religion as a tool to use in anti-Roman propaganda and agitation. For this reason, the Romans severely persecuted these early Egyptian Christians. But the religion survived in a form far different than the form it assumed in Europe; Egypt, however, would not belong to the Egyptians again for many, many centuries.
Copyrights © 1995 - 2005 Egyptian Cabinet, Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC) - Egypt

Early Christianity in Egypt

According to tradition, Saint Mark brought Christianity to Egypt in the reign of the Roman emperor Nero in the first century. Some of the early converts to the new faith came from within the Jewish community in Egypt, which represented the largest concentration outside of Palestine at that time.

Christianity spread throughout Egypt within half a century of Saint Mark's arrival in Alexandria, as is clear from the New Testament writings found in Bahnasa in Middle Egypt, which date around the year 200, and a fragment of the Gospel of Saint John, which was found in Upper Egypt. The Gospel is written in Coptic and dates back to the first half of the second century. History of the Coptic Christian Church
The word Coptic is derived from the Arabic corruption of the Greek 'Aigyptas' which was derived from 'Hitaptah' one of the names for Memphis the first capital of ancient Egypt. The modern use of the term Coptic refers to the Christian Egyptians.
In its early years in Egypt Christianity was engaged in a lengthy struggle against the indigenous pagan religious practices descending from ancient times as well as against Hellenism which had started in Alexandria and other urban centers. To counter the appeal of Greek philosophy the Christian leadership in Egypt established the Cathecal School of Alexandria (the Didascalia) which provided intellectual refutations of Greek philosophers and sophisticated advocacy of Christianity. Nonetheless, the transformation of Egypt into a Christian country was not an entirely smooth process. There was resistance from the pagan and Hellenized elements of the population, and there were divisions within the Christian Church itself between advocates of the various theological schools evolving at this time, due to several incidents that occurred , eg: the burning in 391AD of the pagan cult center. It is obvious that the dominance of the new religion was gained at the expense of the intellectual heterogeneity that had distinguished the city.

The pre-Islamic period for the Copts was marked by two major events, the beginning of the Coptic calendar in AD 284, in commemoration of the persecution suffered by Egypt's Christians and the establishment of an independent Egyptian Church in 451 AD, following the council of Chalcedon which condemned the monphysite theology. Thereafter the relations between Egypt's Copts and Constantinople were strained as the Copts refused to recognize the religious authority of the Patriarchs of Alexandria appointed by the Byzantine State. These clerics were given widespread administrative power, in 550 AD, against the political and the religious dominance of Egypt by the outsiders. This opposition may in part account for the Copts acceptance of the Muslim conquest who saw the Muslims as liberators from the Byzantine yoke.
function Chatwin

Copyrights © 1995 - 2005 Egyptian Cabinet, Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC) - Egypt

Ancient Arts

Art flourished and played a vital role in shaping the ancient Egyptian culture, though art for 'arts sake' as its known today did not exist in ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptian conceived art as a mean of translating his religious experience into a visual form. Thus all forms of art - sculpture in the round, relief and painting - mainly possessed a ritual purpose whose aim was to reflect the Egyptian conception of his world and afterlife, which was conceived as a timeless idealized world.

From this philosophy originated the character and basic features of art which expressed the

religious ideas in the most comprehensible way.

The most distinctive character is the adoption of the two dimensional representation, since art was conceived as a set of symbols that convey information for the viewer to read. The figures were conceived as diagrams of what they represent. The artist showed objects in what were believed to be their real forms without any distortion of perspective. Thus use of foreshortening and the adoption of a single unified view point for the whole picture, which we come to know in western art, were both irrelevant to the purpose of Egyptian artist. Therefore the first rule for the artist to follow was to represent objects by showing its most characteristic aspects, two dimensionally on a flat surface without depth. In this sense Egyptian art is conceptual rather than perceptual, for it depicts a concept rather than an image.
For example, the human figure was represented by a composite diagram of what was regarded as the typical aspect of each part of the body, with the whole being recognizable and expressive. The head was shown in profile with a full view eye, eyebrow, and a half mouth. The shoulders were shown full width from the front, while the forward side of the body from armpit to waist including the nipple (or in a woman the breast) was shown in profile, as were the waist, elbows, legs, and feet. As for the hands they were usually represented in full view either opened or clenched. This description is of the standing figure at rest, however there are many variations in pose and detail.

By examining the scenes on the walls of the tombs and temples, we see that it can be divided into two basic types: The formal scenes which posses a ritual purpose, depict the world of the gods and the dead, and the major figures in them are those of the deities, the king or the tomb owner. In the temples the major theme shows the rituals carried by the king before the gods and the acts performed by the gods towards the king. In the tombs the subject matter centers around the owner receiving offerings from his family as well as overseeing activities related to his position or office .
The figures were all shown in an idealized perfect form. The men were youthful and handsome. The women were slim and beautiful, and only the accompanying inscriptions distinguish between a man's wife and his mother. Oldness, illness, and deformity were deliberately excluded. The poses of these figures are limited to standing, sitting, and kneeling, while the violent movements were generally avoided even when the king was shown smiting his enemies, or the tomb owner engaged in an activity like hunting or spearing fish. In such scenes a perfectly balanced body is in the midst of the action giving an impression of controlled power. In addition to these formal scenes there are other types of scenes showing daily life activities in which subordinate figures are usually depicted. Figures in these scenes were far from being perfect sometimes even showing deformity. While the possible poses of the formal figures were limited, the poses in which minor figures might be shown were extremely wide, they could be shown engaged in activities like dancing, fighting, farming .......etc. . In both scenes the scale was used to organize the entire compositions. The larger the figure, the more important it is. Usually the king and god were both shown equal in size and facing each other. However, with the introduction of the new religion by Akhenaten, we see changes that resulted in a distinctive style of art which was developed to express his religious ideas and decorate his new capital, el Amarna.

The difference between the traditional art style and Amarna art is not a fundamental difference in the principles of representation that were inherited a long time ago. However the difference lies in the subject matter as well as the proportions of the human figure. Traditional scenes in the temples centered around rituals carried by the king towards the gods, while in the Amarna Period these scenes were all combined in one unvarying scene type, where the king adores beneath the sun disk, while the rays of Aten embrace him and offer him the sign of life. As for the scenes in the tombs a new scene type was developed which replaced the traditional representation of the tomb owner seated before a table of offerings or standing before a deity. The new scenes show the royal family in various domestic situations breaking away from the previous type of formal scenes of the king. One of the most obvious ways in which Amarna art departs from the traditional is in the proportions of the human figure. The king was shown with bizarre features, a long bony face with narrow and slanting eyes, fleshy mouth, long neck, protruding belly, heavy buttocks and thighs, short legs and spindly arms. It is a controversial matter whether this way of representation reflects Akhenaten's real physical appearance or rather an image of Akhenaten that arises as an expression of his religious ideas. Traces of Amarna Art continued in spite of the return to orthodoxy under Tutankhamon and his two successors, Ay and Horemheb. However, the reign of Horemheb shows the start of the working out of the Amarna legacy, where a certain formalism and a return to the traditional type of representations are evident. Within these basic rules the Egyptians produced their artistic materials. Despite some changes and developments that occurred, the character of the art remained the same through out all the phases of the Egyptian history.

Copyrights © 1995 - 2005 Egyptian Cabinet, Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC) - Egypt