Housing the world's largest collection of Coptic Christian artwork, this museum provides a link between ancient and Islamic Egypt. The museum is classified by medium, more or less. 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 pieces, but several are noteworthy first for their quirkiness or their syncretism, rather than their beauty: carvings and paintings that trace the transformations of the ancient key of life, the ankh, into the cross, for example, and Christian scenes with Egyptian gods. For a detailed guide of the museum, look for Jill Kamil's Coptic Egypt: History and Guide (American University in Cairo Press).
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