Sepulcher was built, here in the cave where they took refuge and lived during their stay in Egypt, the church of San Sergio and San Baco was built in the 5th century.
The architecture of the Coptic neighborhood is very attractive, as it is influenced by many different cultures, Greek, Egyptian, Arab and Byzantine. And many times we find in the same building details of different styles and periods.
The Coptic neighborhood is located in the same place since its founding called Babylon Fortress, within which, in addition to the museum, there are numerous churches of different religions.
Also called with the term Castle of Egypt, by Ptolemy one hundred years before Christ. At the time of the Roman Empire, the emperors reinforced the walls, which are 3 meters thick and the towers are 10 meters high and 31 in diameter. From the Arab conquest, the name of the Babylonian fortress was extended to the entire area surrounding the castle of Qasr ash-Sham’a.
After visiting some of the beautiful churches such as that of San Jorge and its convent, the suspended or hanging church that is the most famous, since its dome is shaped like Noah’s Ark, as described in the Old Testament, with more than 100 painted icons. And the Church of St. Barbara, Thomas and Lein meet in front of the Coptic Museum in Cairo, to continue research on an old papyrus.
Coptic Museum
The Coptic Museum is a museum devoted entirely to Coptic art between the years 300 to 1000 of our era. It was created in 1910 and contains different pieces of architecture, ivory objects, icons and papyri, all of them from the Coptic invoice.
Coptic icons originated from ancient Greek and Egyptian icons, as seen in Fayum portraits. The faces of El Fayum are examples of Coptic art from the 2nd century, with strong Hellenistic and Roman influences, but some distinctive details of Egyptian art. An icon literally means “image” a work of religious art of Eastern Christianity in which Jesus, Maria, the Saints, the angels or biblical events are represented and are used in prayer, Orthodox Christians pray in the presence of the icon, whom he respects but does not adore them. In a painting on a flat panel, but it can also be in relief and made of metal, carved in stone, embroidered, made on paper, mosaic, embossed, etc. It is a graphic representation, mainly a simple drawing or scheme. Unlike Italian Renaissance painters, Coptic artists did not sign their works, but the main ones known include Saint Luke, believed to be the first iconographer, and two Coptic Popes, Macarius I and Gabriel III.
Do you know ¿what is the greatest treasure that this museum preserves? Thomas asks Anne. No, she replies.
Ancient sacred texts known as the Nag Hammadi Manuscripts are preserved here.
-Yes, the so-called Apocryphal Gospels? Sure those.
After touring the museum, they meet with Egyptian intelligence in front of the museum, and he lets them know of the suspicion that a Catholic Cardinal had recently visited the Coptic Quarter and met with a religious leader of the Orthodox Christian churches of the place. They do not know for what reason. Maybe just see the Nag Hammadi Scrolls that the Vatican always wanted to possess.
Thomas reminds them that the MNH, the Nag Hammadi manuscripts, are kept in the Coptic Museum. For the Arab world, they lack meaning, but he tells you that for the Christian world it is, and it is possible that Cardinal Bonarotti’s visit is related to that.
They look at each other, shaking their heads, as if hesitating a little.
Finally, they return to the Citadel of Sala el-Dim for then with the collected data they decide, to visit the Cardinal himself in Rome.
Al Azhar Park is a beautiful green haven in the middle of busy Cairo. Listed as one of the sixty greatest public spaces in the world. By the Project for Public Space (PPS). Vrado by the Aga Khan Trus for Culture Program for Historic Cities, an agency focused on the weakening of the communities of the Islamic World, chaired by the Aga Khan IV, Prince Karim al-Hussayni, whose ancestors, the Caliph Fatimies, founded the city from Cairo in 969.
In this place surrounded by flower bushes, fruit trees and palms is the place where Thomas and Anne meet every morning to begin their investigation with an open mind. There Jamil picks them up and they go to the airport this time. Rome awaits you.
Vatican
Jamil Fahmi with Thomas and Anne and a group of Egyptian security arrive at Roma, through the Leonardo Da Vinci Fuimichino airport.
The procession heads, all in dark German cars with tinted windows, piled high and at high speed, to the city of the Vatican.
In 1984, the Vatican City was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO for its architectural and historical relevance. Although due to its lack of borders and indications and its central location, the Vatican seems just another neighborhood in Rome, but in reality it is a sovereign state. It is the smallest country in Europe, with only 0.44 square kilometers and some 800 people live within its walls, including the Pope and the highest representatives of the Clergy. Here is the Holy See, the highest institution of the Catholic Church. Its official language is Latin although it is only used in liturgies, and even in ATMs you have the choice of language.
It no longer has the splendor that it had when it possessed the Papal States on the Italian peninsula.
In 1860 Vittorio Emanuel II seized them and left the Holy See alone with the possession of Rome and under the sovereignty of the king of unified Italy, it was not until 1929 that the Vatican achieved its independence again, after the Treaty o The Lateran Pact, in the negotiations that Cardinal Pietro Gasparri took, on behalf of Pope Pius XI, and Prime Minister Benito Mussolini.
Even so it is a place that mixes opulence and majesty, the Basilica with its marble floors bear witness to this.
Thomas, Anne and Jamil walk through Via della Concilizione, cross the Sant Angelo Bridge, in front of the Castle of the same name, with a lot of history and thus finally arrive at Piazza di Pietro and St. Peter’s Basilica.
Thousands of tourists visit it every day, simply to enjoy the art it houses or for religious purposes. In the center of the square is its great Egyptian obelisk, the two fountains, the columns and dozens of statues of saints.
In the city of Rome there are eight obelisks brought from Ancient Egypt and five from Ancient Rome and other more modern ones. Thomas comments.
This particular one was brought from Alexandria by order of Octavian (30 -28 BC) to dedicate it to Julius Caesar. The obelisk crossed the Mediterranean in a 80-meter ship carrying a cargo of 1,000 tons of lentils. If long before Napoleon made obelisks fashionable to beautify European cities.
Caligula had him placed in his circus, later known as the Circus of Nero, who tortured the Christians there, the Apostle Saint Peter himself, suffered his martyrdom. It was 40 meters high and weighed 320 tons and is one of the few that does not have hieroglyphic inscriptions. Probably erected in Heliopolis, the ancient capital of Lower Egypt, at the time of Pharaoh Amenemhet II, so it would be 4000 years old, it is made of red granite from the Aswan quarry. On the pedestal you can read a dedication to Augustus and Tiberius. In the year 1585, Pope Sixtus V ordered it to be brought to its current location in the square in front of the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica, designed by Bernini. The chosen place was decided to “see the monuments of the gentility subjected to the cross in those same places where formerly Christians suffered death on the cross.” He also did it to celebrate the triumph of the church against paganism and heresy. For this it was necessary to Christianize it with an inscription; with the pope’s symbols of arms: lions and three mountains and with a bronze cross that since the 18th century preserves the relic of the Holy Cross and a magic formula of Catholic exorcism as protection.
Domenico