The Six Artifacts on Display at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir
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The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir has put on display six Coptic-era artifacts
at its entrance as the January Pieces of the Month in celebration of the Coptic
Christmas on 7 January.
Sabah Abdel-Razak, director-general of the Egyptian Museum, explains
that the artifacts were carefully selected from the Coptic Museum in Old Cairo
and include two pieces of Coptic textiles and three wood carvings.
The first piece of textile has overlapping decorations colored in beige
and brown with a cross in the middle.
The second is part of a Coptic robe with plants and geometric
decorations, colored in black, dark beige and red. Its lower part ends with
tassels colored with blue and gray.
The first of the three wood carvings is decorated with images of an
angel, a saint holding a book, and the Virgin Mary carrying the baby Jesus.
The second carving is gilded and decorated with the image of two saints;
Irene, whose name means peace, and Foteine, meaning the bright one. An image of
Christ is depicted in the middle, with the names of all three written in Greek
above each image. The third carving depicts the Virgin Mary carrying the baby Jesus and
has a metal cover with ancient Russian writing.