Arts · Late antiquity → present
Weaving, wall painting, manuscript illumination and icon painting form one of the great surviving bodies of late-antique art. Cairo's Coptic Museum, founded in 1908 by Marcus Simaika, holds the principal collection.
Egypt's dry soil preserved thousands of Coptic woven pieces — tunics, hangings and fragments decorated with geometric, plant, animal and human motifs. These textiles are among the most studied classes of Coptic material culture worldwide.
From funerary portraits of Roman Egypt, Christian painting developed into the icon tradition maintained by the Coptic Church. Monastery walls at Wadi al-Natrun and the Red Sea monasteries preserve medieval programmes of wall painting still studied and restored today.
Marcus Simaika established the Coptic Museum in 1908 within Old Cairo, gathering woodwork, metalwork, frescoes, textiles and manuscripts into one national collection beside the historic churches.
