Egypt: faith after the pharaohs

In ancient Egypt the god Horus was
 the divine representation of the living king, commonly shown as a man with 
the head of a falcon. Images of Horus in Roman military costume expressed the ancient Egyptian god’s power by using distinctively Roman symbols of authority. They also served to validate Roman political dominance by clothing the divine manifestation of the ancient Egyptian king in Roman costume. Here Horus wears an ancient Egyptian headdress and military dress worn by the Roman emperor.

Among the many gods worshipped in Roman Egypt was the one God of the Jews. By 
the time the Romans arrived Judaism was well-established in the country.

Under the Ptolemies, Jewish communities had generally thrived, with some adopting Greek culture and language.

The Septuagint was the Greek translation of the Torah, originally written in Hebrew. Jews such as Philo of Alexandria used this Greek version of the Bible, and for Christians it became part of their Old Testament. This fragment contains lines from the Book of Job. We can be assured that this is a Jewish book roll because the scribe, writing in Greek, left a space on the 5th line where another writer has inserted YHWH. The letters represent the name of God in a Hebrew script that was ancient at the time of writing and used for sacred purposes.

Early Christians debated which texts should and should not be included in what was to become the New Testament. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, giving an account of the life and sayings of Jesus, were accepted. Others were not and later became forbidden reading.

This fragment
 was discovered in the rubbish heaps of the city Oxyrhynchus. Following Jesus’ discourse with 
his followers, Peter asks Mary, probably Mary Magdalene, to share her secret knowledge ('gnosis') with the disciples. As in some other so-called gnostic texts, a woman is shown 
in a role of spiritual leadership. The Gospel of Mary was probably composed in Greek in the 2nd century. While this fragment of a copy in Greek dates to the 3rd century, the most complete surviving copy is in a 5th-century Coptic manuscript.

This statue of Germanicus, great-nephew of Augustus, was probably carved around the time of his death in AD 19, shortly after a visit to Egypt. Years later, after the establishment of Christianity, someone inscribed a cross on his forehead. Either at the same time or separately, someone hacked the statue across the nose, right ear and neck. We can only speculate as to why the cross was added – did it neutralise spirits thought to dwell in images, or was it added to ‘Christianise’ a popular member of the imperial family? Or perhaps, following the ancient tradition of marking slaves with tattoos, was it to mark Germanicus
 as a ‘slave of God,’ just as we are told some Christians marked themselves?

As members of the elite adopted Christianity, the Church became well-funded through donations and gifts. From the 4th century onwards, especially, Christians began to build churches, saints’ shrines and monasteries, redefining the sacred landscape of Egypt. Some buildings were newly constructed, others were built on earlier sacred sites. Some occupied earlier temple complexes or shrines, others were built of reused stone. This was mainly practical, but it could also be seen as a triumph of Christianity over traditional religion.

The Temple of Isis at Philae was the last functioning temple in Egypt. While most temples were closed by the end of the 4th century, this temple remained open so that people from Nubia, to the south of Egypt, could worship there. The latest hieroglyphic and demotic inscriptions, dating to AD 436 and AD 452, are both found on Philae. The temple went out of use shortly afterwards.

The story of how the people of Philae were converted to Christianity, as told in this codex,
 is dramatic. In the temple, there was a caged falcon that people believed embodied the god Horus. Macedonius, Philae’s newly appointed bishop, went to the temple asking ‘to make a sacrifice to God’, without betraying that he was a Christian. As the altar was prepared for the sacrifice, he went up to the cage, cut off the falcon’s head and threw it on the burning altar. According to the story he later baptised the city’s entire population.

Across the Christian world people visited the tombs of early martyr saints and in Egypt, as elsewhere, many towns had their own local martyr. In time, their tombs were marked by shrines and churches, and whole new settlements grew up around them. A web of pilgrimage routes connected these sites and attracted local and international travellers.

Christian pilgrims flocking to the shrine of St Menas, just south-west of Alexandria, took away with them the saint’s blessings in the form of earth, oil or water in little flasks such. Today such flasks have been discovered at sites from Britain to Uzbekistan.

As Christianity became the main religion of the Byzantine empire, people continued to receive a classical education and to use imagery associated with traditional beliefs. Even monks continued to learn Greek by writing out passages from the poet Homer. The same writer might create works of
 poetry inspired by both the classical tradition and Christian literature. Artists of all media continued to decorate their work with scenes from classical mythology, and ancient Egyptian symbols were reinterpreted.

These hangings, decorated with Christian and classical imagery, may have been used as door curtains in a Christian building. Along the top are 'erotes' (chubby babies personifying love), holding floral garlands and standing between baskets of produce. Below them, two winged 'nikai' (Victory figures) hold a wreath containing a jewelled cross with the remains of a Greek inscription in the surviving quadrants formed
 by the cross. The hangings were reused when they were put to a new purpose, serving as a burial shroud, which is why they have survived nearly intact.

Under Fatimid rule there was a thriving Coptic Christian community with international links across the medieval world. Although there were periods of repression, most Muslim rulers allowed Christians to practise their religion without interference, on condition they paid a special tax.

The Church of the Virgin – also known as al-Mu’allaqa or the Hanging Church – is one 
of several medieval churches, as well as a synagogue, built within the walls of the former Roman fortress now part of Old Cairo. This panel is one of ten that once decorated the doors of a baptistery within the church. They are carved in an international style, suggesting strong contacts with the wider Mediterranean world.

This panel depicts both the Nativity and the Adoration of the Christ child in the upper registers and, below, the midwives washing the child, in accordance with an apocryphal tradition.

In 1166 Maimonides, one of the most influential Jewish scholars of all time, moved to the city. He became the head of the Jewish community in Cairo and compiled authoritative texts that are still used today.

Among the texts preserved in the Cairo Genizah was this is an early draft of the Mishneh Torah, for which Maimonides is most famous today. A systematic compilation of oral law, it is complete with corrections, additions and deletions in his own, at times, illegible hand. Maimonides spent 10 years working on the text, while he lived in Cairo, codifying biblical and rabbinical law, and presenting it in a systematic, logical arrangement.