Coptic treasures in the Louvre

By Jill Kamil

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The south church of the monastery of St Apollo; the image of Christ

Of all the collection of Coptic artefacts abroad -- at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington DC, the Victoria and Albert and the British Museum in London, Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore and the Brooklyn Museum in New York, as well as objects in Ravenna, Berlin and Copenhagen -- one of the greatest is in the Louvre, where several Coptic galleries devoted to the display of architectural elements and objects from the south church of the once prestigious monastery of St Apollo at Bawit have recently opened.

Apollo was a holy man who, according to the anonymous compiler of the History of Egyptian Monks, was the spiritual father of 500 or so monks who settled in hermitages in the Western Desert from the fourth century. As Apollo became more renowned for the many wonders he performed, his monastery expanded and developed until his following of monks numbered 5,000.

When French archaeologists carried out excavations at the site at the beginning of the 20th century they found two churches which were in such a sorry state that there was no question of restoration. The monastery was simply stripped of all that was of any artistic worth, and the treasures were split up without written or photographic documentation. The north church is today in the Coptic Museum in Cairo, while in the Louvre are the rich architectural elements of carved stone and wooden friezes of the south church, all of which show great skill in the execution of geometrical, vegetal and figurative motifs, as well as this unique representation of Christ from the south-eastern niche.