Egypt

EGYPT. - E. (Misr according to the local Arabic name) comprises the Nile valley north of the second cataract (Wadi Halfa) with the adjacent territories of the Libyan and Arabian deserts.

I. GEOGRAPHY.

E. has an area of 994,300 sq km. But almost its entire population (19.1 million inhabitants) is concentrated with high densities (up to more than 800 inhabitants per sq km) on barely 1/30 of this area (35,000 sq km), consisting of the narrow valley in which the river flows, its delta and a few oases.

The utilization of the waters of the Nile, perfected and extended with modern irrigation systems, has allowed E., a country agricultural par excellence, to turn to profitable industrial crops: cotton (of fine quality), prevalent in the delta region, and sugar cane in the upper valley of the river, alongside which, however, cereals also retain importance, insufficient as they are for domestic consumption.

Manufacturing is of modest proportions and, on the whole, mining production is also scant, yielding little petroleum, manganese, tungsten and, above all, phosphates. Among industries, the most developed are sugar refining, textiles, milling and food processing, which partly cover domestic needs.

The population consists 98% of Egyptians, considered descendants of the ancient Hamitic forebears, whose characteristics have been preserved both in the Muslim fellahin (peasants) and in the Coptic merchants of Upper E., who have remained faithful to Monophysite Christianity (about 1/10 of the indigenous population). There are moreover numerous Greeks (50,000), Italians (52,000), English (34,000; mostly Maltese), French, etc. The Israelites number around 65,000. The capital, Cairo (2.1 million inhabitants), is the most populous city of the African continent; the principal port is Alexandria (928,000 inhabitants).

Giuseppe Caraci

II. HISTORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT.

I. PREHISTORIC EGYPT

While the Bible, in enumerating the descendants of the sons of Noah (Gen. 10:6, 13), limits itself to citing among those of the stock of Ham also Misraim, the name by which the Hebrews usually designated the land of Egypt, recent discoveries allow us to know with greater precision the most remote vicissitudes of the country and of the people.

In agreement with geology, which demonstrates how the Nile had opened its way toward the Mediterranean among the lands and rocks of most ancient Egypt and had fashioned the valley into terraces, progressively lower, excavations have revealed the presence of most ancient man along the two banks of the river, in the most distant millennia on the higher places and then gradually on the lower ones, following in its slow movement of descent the river silt, an indispensable factor of fertility and life for the land and for men. Thus the traces of lower Paleolithic man have been found on the heights of el-Qurnah, in the district of Thebes, while the men of the upper Paleolithic, in the African facies characteristic of the Capsian, left their record at Sabil above Kom Ombo about 40 km north of Aswan. The Neolithic, on the other hand, is represented in a special way at el-'Omari (south of Cairo), at Beni Salama (Merimde) and elsewhere in the Delta. There follows the age of metals, which lasted more than 2000 years and was also called the "predynastic" period, during which Egypt already reached a high degree of civilization, attested not only by the more perfect working of stone and pottery, by the discovery of leather tanning, by the manufacture of glass and by the engraving of ivory, but also by the invention of writing and by the calculation of the calendar. el-Badari near Asyut is one of the oldest sites of this Egyptian prehistoric facies; others are at el-Ballas, Naqada, Armant and elsewhere. These advances prove a very advanced civil organization, regarding which it is debated whether it is a matter of African or Asiatic (that is, Semitic) influences or rather of a form of civilization originating by spontaneous germination in the Delta. In any case, at the dawn of history there already appear, as long existing in Egypt, two kingdoms: one of Upper Egypt, with capital Nben (Gr. Hieraconpolis, Arabic Kom el-Ahmar) and that of Lower Egypt with capital Seb'eve (Arab. Tell el-Fara'in).

II. BEGINNING OF HISTORY AND ITS PERIODS

The history of E. begins with the victory of the kings of Lower Egypt and the unification of the country under a single monarch, Menes, who gathered upon his head the two crowns, of Upper and Lower Egypt.

From that time the sovereigns are designated in our tradition, divided into 30 dynasties, according to the indications that have been furnished to us by the now lost work of a Greek-Egyptian priest, Manetho of Sebennytos (3rd century B.C.). Their chronology, especially that of the first among them, has been the subject of long controversy among scholars, but today, founded upon certain more solid cornerstones, it stands fixed, by and large, as follows:

Old Kingdom, dynasties I-II, capital

Thinis (This) 3340-2821 B.C.
dynasties III-VI, capital Memphis 2820-2386 B.C.

1st intermediate period: dynasties VII-XI (1st half) ca. 2385-2160 B.C.

Middle Kingdom, dynasties XI (2nd half)-XII, capital Thebes ca. 2160-1869 B.C.

2nd intermediate period, dynasty XIII 1868-1786 B.C.

Invasion and domination of the Hyksos; dynasties XV-XVII 1785-1575 B.C.

New Kingdom, dynasties XVIII-XX, capital Thebes 1575-1101 B.C.

3rd intermediate period, dynasty XXI, capital Tanis 1100-950 B.C.

dynasty XXII, capital Bubastis 950-730 B.C.
dynasty XXIII, capital Tanis 817-730 B.C.

dynasties XXIV-XXV: Ethiopian and Assyrian dynasties 730-664 B.C.

Late period, dynasty XXVI, capital Sais 663-525 B.C.

Persian dominion, dynast. XXVI-XXX 525-332 B.C.

There follows the conquest of Alexander the Great (332 B.C.) and the series of Ptolemaic (Lagid) sovereigns down to 30 B.C.; then Roman dominion from 30 B.C. to 395 A.D.; then the Byzantine, from 395 to 640, and then the Arab conquest and dominion with 640 A.D.

III. OLD KINGDOM

In this period the high degree of civilization and progress of the predynastic age develops ever more fully; during the first two dynasties the capital is Thinis (This) near Abydos, at about the 36th parallel; but already to Menes is attributed the founding of the "White Fortress," where Memphis was later the capital beginning with King Şöder (Zoner), first of the III dynasty (2821 B.C.). The Old Kingdom marks one of the most glorious ages of Egyptian history.

The Bible makes no explicit mention of it; but many centuries later tradition finds ample place in the histories of Herodotus (II, 124 ff.). The State appears ordered and peaceful, and peaceful the production of great wealth; military expeditions are instead carried out in Sinai and Nubia with the result of warding off the dangers of foreign invasions and of drawing abundant booty from them; finally imposing constructions, such as the tomb of Şöder at Saqqarah and the great pyramids of Mejdûm and of Dahâur and of the surroundings of Memphis (Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus), the Sphinx (Chephren) and temples, such as that of the Sun of Abû Şir, perpetuate through the millennia the tangible memory of the art of that remote age. Thought, and especially religious thought, is preserved above all in the numerous inscriptions of the tombs of kings and of officials favored by them; among all the most precious are the Pyramid Texts, discovered at Saqqarah in pyramids and other tombs of the V and VI dynasty, for an extent of about 2000 rather long lines; on the other hand, the mathematical and mystical fantasies that arose in some moderns concerning the great pyramid, in relation to the Bible and to the traditions of the Hebrews, have no foundation whatsoever.

The dynasties between the VII and the XI would mark, according to the arts and letters and new well-being to the people. The best-known sovereigns are those whose names contain an indication of their religious preferences, the name of the gods Mont, Amon and Wôre, gods characteristic of the new capital, Thebes; Menthôtpe (Menthôtppe) IV, Amenemhè I and the latter's son Zenwôre (Senwôre) I (perhaps the Sesostris of the Greeks). With the XIII dynasty (1868 B.C.) Egypt rapidly loses all its prosperity, probably because power passed into the hands of inert princes who both internally and externally brought about the fall of all that had been the pride of the preceding dynasties. And so Egypt was opened, around 1785, to the invasion the very probable interpretation, two centuries of decline of royal power and of the advantage of a kind of feudalism, which has led some moderns to call this age the Egyptian Middle Ages; a famous papyrus (Leiden no. 334) also speaks of a veritable popular revolution, in part perhaps only imaginary; but there is no doubt that the political activity of the people begins to assert itself, preparing the advent of new dynasties and of new centers, such as that of Heracleopolis, which would have provided the sovereigns of the IX dynasty. Toward the end of this period of Egyptian life is probably to be referred the biblical account of the emigration to Egypt of the patriarch Abraham, according to the account of Gen. 12, 10-12, from Bethel toward the Negeb, an emigration caused by famine; in Egypt Sarah was taken away at the court of the Pharaoh and then restored to Abraham, who, having limited himself with his still nomadic tribe to a temporary stay in the country, returned to the place of departure as soon as the conditions of life permitted.

IV. THE MIDDLE KINGDOM

In it Egypt recovered its tradition of power and civilization, asserting its arms and its prestige from Nubia to Somalia, both by broadening its ties of interest with overseas countries, such as the island of Crete, and by giving new impetus of the Hyksos (v.), who from the frontier of Pelusium, which had remained poorly guarded, penetrated into the country, spreading through the Delta and even further south, and establishing their capital at Avaris, in a northeastern locality of the Delta not yet identified, while in Upper Egypt and at Thebes the descendants of the ancient dynasties survived.

Usually attributed to this moment of Egyptian life is the account of Gen. 37-50, which tells of Joseph, son of Jacob, sold by his envious brothers to Egyptian merchants and later becoming the Pharaoh's steward and the husband of the daughter of Potiphar, priest of On; having then saved Egypt from a severe famine, he welcomed his brothers near him and invited, in the king's name, the whole family of Jacob to move to Egypt, and specifically to the land of Goshen (v.) or land of Rameses, almost certainly in the eastern part of the Delta. To rise up against the usurpers, around 1573 the first king of the XVIII dynasty, Ahmose, set out; he drove out the Hyksos, destroying Avaris, pushed back the Nubians and reorganized the whole country, inaugurating the glorious XVIII dynasty and the New Kingdom.

V. NEW KINGDOM

There followed in the XVIII dynasty some of the most powerful sovereigns of E., who from Thebes ruled the whole country and several foreign territories, who increased with fortunate victorious expeditions the standard of well-being of the citizens and left to posterity grandiose monuments and copious written testimonies on papyri and on epigraphs.

Thutmose (Thutmosis) I extended the power of the Egyptians as far as the banks of the Euphrates. His daughter Hatshepsut, taking advantage of the premature death of her husband Thutmose II, reigned for about twenty years as regent of the future Thutmose III; among the other distinguished works she left, mention should be made above all of the grandiose sanctuary erected in the necropolis of Thebes at Deir el-Bahri and in part still surviving. Thutmose III, the conqueror of Syria and of Nubia as far as the fourth cataract of the Nile, is celebrated in surviving sculptures, epigraphs and papyri. Of Amenhotep (v. AMENOPHIS) III, the Memnon of the Greeks, his greatness is exalted, and his two great statues in the plain of Thebes survive, still called "the colossi of Memnon." After the brief interlude of Amenhotep IV, who, exalting himself with the almost monotheistic cult of Aten, in opposition to Amun and his priesthood, created a new religion, which it was sought to link to Palestinian and Hebrew influences, and neglected the defense of the Syrian conquests, Tutankhamun, whose tomb, discovered in 1922, is well known, restored Egyptian prestige, until Horemheb energetically began the XIX dynasty. Among these sovereigns one of the most illustrious is without doubt Seti (Seti) I, victor in a first clash with the Hittites at Qidsa (Qadesh), a city on the Orontes, where a few years later, in 1294, his son and successor Seti Ramesses (Rameses & Ramses [v.]) II resumed the struggle against an entire coalition of States to the detriment of E., in the manner celebrated in a poem surviving in the Sallier III papyrus; the conditions of peace between Hittites and Egyptians are handed down in surviving treaties, both on the Hittite and on the Egyptian side; one of the daughters of King Hattusili marries Ramesses II, who is famous also for his numerous and imposing constructions. In these constructions and reconstructions the king would also have made use of foreign workers and among others of the Hebrew tribe of Goshen, descended from Jacob and received there in the time of the Hyksos; the Bible (Ex. 1, 11) declares explicitly that the Hebrews, under a king who was by then no longer mindful of Joseph's benefits, watched over by implacable overseers, were forced to erect "the store cities of Pithom and Ramesses" (perhaps the first in the Wadi et-Tumilat and the other at Tanis) and were subjected to a series of vexations, justified in part by the increase of the original tribe, which could be prejudicial to the security of the State in the event of a conflict with the neighbors of Palestine. Thus there arises, during perhaps more than 100 years, the discontent and the ever more ardent desire of the Hebrews to return to the Promised Land. Which came about (Ex. 1, 14) under the guidance of Moses (v.), exposed to death on the Nile by order of a pharaoh persecutor, saved by a princess and then received among the king's courtiers. Having killed an overbearing Egyptian overseer, he had fled to Midian, southwest of the Dead Sea, whence he had returned to E. resolved to free his brothers. He then asked the pharaoh for permission to leave with his people, but was refused; there followed the prodigies connected with the departure of the Hebrews and with the crossing of the sea, or rather of the marshes in the vicinity of the Bitter Lakes and Lake Timsah.

This exodus seems likely to have occurred (although there are conflicting theories: one that dates the exodus to the age of the Hyksos, one to the times of Amenhotep IV, and another during the XX dynasty) at the moment of disorder corresponding to the reign of Meneptah (d. 1211 B.C.) and to the assault made on E. by the "peoples of the sea," an echo and reflection of the Indo-European invasion toward the west, whose repercussion in all the countries of the Mediterranean is clear. Worth noting in this regard is the passage from a stele of the king, found near the colossi of Memnon and now in the Cairo museum (P. Lacau, Stèles du Nouvel Empire, in Catal. génér. du Musée du Caire, Cairo 1909, no. 34025 v.), in which it is said that the victorious king affirms he has "destroyed Israel, so that no seed of it exists any longer. Syria has become a widow because of E." The document, dated to the fifth year of Meneptah's reign, proves that the Hebrews were then settled in Syria and that the exodus from E. had already taken place.

At the beginning of the XX dynasty (1210) the king Ramses III fully restores the prestige of the State, reacting outside and inside against its adversaries: outside, his advance into Syria is notable, while Palestine was occupied by the Philistines, from whom the name of the region derives; inside, Ramses III and his successors had to struggle above all against the priests of Amun, who ended up triumphing over them.

VI. THE LATE EMPIRE

The XXI dynasty represents the beginning of a new period of decline, during which kings of Libyan or Ethiopian stock also prevailed: among others the Libyan Shoshenq (v. SESAC) of the XXII dynasty, who reestablished ties with Palestine after King Solomon (975-935) married a daughter of the king of Egypt and received the city of Gezer as her dowry (I Kings 3:1; 9:16); this would be Psusennes I, son of Smendes, the second ruler of the XXI dynasty in the Delta; from that time on it seems that relations between Egypt and Palestine became more frequent, whether in the days of Solomon (I Kings 10:28 ff.), who bought chariots and horses in Egypt, or where Jeroboam took refuge, pursued by Solomon's wrath (I Kings 11:40), as Adad had done in the time of David (I Kings 11:17-22). In 927 King Shoshenq even interfered directly in the affairs of Syria and plundered Jerusalem (I Kings 14:25 ff.), subsequently invading also the kingdom of Jeroboam, his protégé; a stele on the facade of the pylon of the great temple of Amun at Karnak preserves the names of the cities conquered during this campaign of Shoshenq I. The Bible speaks of a defeat that Asa, king of Judah (913-837), inflicted on the Ethiopian king Zerah (II Chron. 14:9-12), who could be Osorkon I (925-889) of the XXII dynasty. There follow conflicts between the kings of Nubia, with their capital at Napata, and the kingdom of Egypt, with varying fortunes, until at the beginning of the XXIV dynasty there ascended the throne

King Bocchoris, who had a reputation for justice. But he was killed by the Ethiopian king Shabaka, who succeeded in unifying Egypt once more under a single king, and made an alliance with the king of Judah, Hezekiah, to oppose the Assyrian invasion led by Sennacherib (704). His successor Tirhakah of the XXV dynasty advanced with an army against the Assyrian and succeeded, probably with the help of the plague, which decimated the Assyrian army, in liberating the kingdom of Judah. However, before long Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, was victorious and not only invaded the Delta with his army, but also pushed beyond Memphis as far as Thebes.

VII. THE SAITE KINGDOM

The Saite kingdom inaugurates an era of resurrection for Egypt with Psammetichus I (663-610), Necho (609-595) and Psammetichus II (594-589), who from their capital of Sais, in the Delta, set the country in order in a relatively short time. With Necho, Egypt is an ally of Assyria at the time when the latter is rapidly giving way under the blows of its adversaries in the east; and at the moment when Necho rushes to the aid of the ally (609), King Josiah of Judah dares to oppose the march of the Egyptians and is defeated at Megiddo (II Kings 23:29) and killed. The new king Jehoahaz was deposed and taken prisoner by Necho and replaced with a brother of his, Eliakim, and the country subjected to a heavy tribute. Subsequently then to the fall of Nineveh, while many Hebrews leaned toward an ever closer alliance with the kingdom of E., with which so many good relations had existed since the time of their forefathers, the victory of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon over Nekō at Carchemish (604) radically changes the situation of E. also in its relations with Palestine, because it now confines it within its own borders and leaves Jerusalem, with intervals of greater and lesser détente, at the mercy of the Chaldeans, until 325, when Psammetichus III is defeated at Pelusium by the Persian king Cambyses, who introduces Persian rule into E., beginning the XXVIIth dynasty.

VIII. THE PERSIAN DOMINATION; THE DYNASTY OF THE PTOLEMIES

The direct predominance of the Persians is exercised during the XXVIIth dynasty (until 404 B.C.), when a national movement in E. brought Amyrtaios to the throne, with the XXVIIIth dynasty. The most interesting problem concerning the era of Persian rule in E. is at once the relations between E. and the Hebrews and that of the Jewish colony of Elephantine, which certain passages of Herodotus (II, 30-31) and of the so-called letter of Aristeas (XIII) already pointed out to us and which a fortunate discovery of papyri and ostraca on the spot has recently illustrated extensively.

It is a military colony established at Elephantine, probably already under Psammetichus I, the ruler of E. who hired numerous foreign mercenaries for the reconstruction of Egyptian authority, a colony subsequently sustained by the introduction of other loyal Jewish elements, and therefore respected, indeed favored, by Cambyses and his Persians. The Jewish soldiers had their families with them and had built a temple, in which they performed their rites. In 412 B.C., that is, under Darius II, anti-Persian movements having begun throughout the country, the native inhabitants of the surrounding area, perhaps instigated by the priests of the god Khnum — a god proper to that nome, a ram-headed god — so that every sacrifice of lambs in the territory of the nome was sacrilegious, while the Jews offered them to Yahweh, especially at Passover — attacked the temple and destroyed it. The temple was perhaps rebuilt, except for restrictions on the use of sacrifices, and the colony survived at least until 400 B.C., that is, under the national king Amyrtaios, after which it is probable that the garrison was dispersed by the nationalists and the Jewish center of Elephantine destroyed.

In fact, the XXVIIIth dynasty was followed by another national dynasty, the XXIXth, until 341, when Artaxerxes III Ochus resumed the offensive against E., rebellious and a hotbed of rebels, and subdued the country once more to his scepter, beginning the XXXth dynasty of Manetho.

For a short time, because a few years later, in 332, Alexander the Great (v.), after the victory of Issus, made the well-known incursion into E., presenting himself as son of Amun and liberator from the Persian yoke. The founding of Alexandria (v.), which became the new cosmopolitan center of the Mediterranean, and the establishment of the Ptolemies as a new dynasty of intentionally indigenous character in the country, until 30 B.C., had a very notable influence also on relations with the Hebrews, who in the process of their dispersion (v. DIASPORA) throughout the world, begun, voluntarily or not, in centuries even remote, felt attracted by the new Ptolemaic Hellenism, to emigrate into this land, which had been a hospitable country also for their fathers and which had always influenced the fortunes of their own homeland. The Jewish colony of Alexandria, lodged in an entire central quarter of the city that took its name from it, and organized with an ethnarch and other officials as an autonomous community within the State, then became a Jewish center, perhaps, as has been said, superior to Jerusalem itself; moreover, as the papyri show us, synagogues and Jewish centers spread throughout the country. Then, after the battle of Panion (200 B.C.) between Ptolemy V and Antiochus III, Palestine having passed from Ptolemaic to Seleucid dominion and the systematic attempt at Hellenization of Judaism by the rulers of Antioch having begun, the Hebrews felt ever more attracted toward the Egyptian kings, who appeared as their natural protectors; E. became ever more the refuge and the hope of the orthodox and nationalist Hebrews, so much so that, ca. 170 B.C., a priest of the descent of the Tobiads, Onias IV, founded at Leontopolis a new Jewish temple, which remained until the time of Vespasian. Moreover, Ptolemaic E. saw, through the initiative of the Ptolemies in the 3rd century B.C., the preparation of a Greek translation of the Bible (v. SEPTUAGINT) and was one of the major channels of diffusion and propaganda of Judaism: it helped to bind the Hebrews of the diaspora to the Greek language, distancing them from the use and tradition of the original Hebrew.

IX. THE ROMAN DOMAIN

After the fall of the kingdom of Cleopatra VII Philopator, following the battle of Actium (30 B.C.), Egypt passed under the direct dominion of Octavian, who replaced the Ptolemaic dynasty with a personal power that to the natives must have appeared no different from that of his predecessors: absolutism is its characteristic; the greatest possible exploitation of the country's resources is its aim. The extension of the dominion beyond the first cataract of the Nile at the expense of the kingdom of Napata, and the development of commerce even in the interior of Africa, are its most notable manifestations.

To the age of Augustus must also be referred the coming to Egypt of the Virgin Mary with Jesus to escape Herod the Great's decree against the newborn children of Bethlehem (Mt. 1, 13): it was probably 3 B.C., but the stay in Egypt cannot have lasted more than a few months, we do not know where, because the Angel (Mt. 2, 20) ordered Joseph to return to the land of Israel.

(phot. Vatican Library)

Both Augustus and his successors clearly saw the importance of the Greek and Jewish colonies alongside and above the native element, and while the former sought a balance between the two currents, under Caligula first and then under Claudius the disorders provoked by the jealousy of the Greeks and by the meddling of the Jews required the repressive intervention of the Romans: famous is the embassy to Caligula of a cultured Hellenized Jew, Philo; and a letter of Claudius to the Alexandrians, found in a papyrus, now in London, a letter of reproach against the fomenters of disorders and of warning to the overly enterprising Jews; in this period Isidore and Lampon, anti-Jewish, were condemned.

Vespasian, as soon as he was acclaimed emperor, moved from Alexandria toward the throne of Rome; the struggle he began against the Jews of Jerusalem had repercussions also in Egypt, where under Trajan, despite the protection of Plotina, matters came to open war and to a veritable bloody persecution. Hadrian, an admirer of the Museum and of the Alexandrian Library, traveled through Egypt as a tourist and peacemaker and there lost his favorite Antinous; during the 3rd and 4th centuries revolts of the Blemmyes and attempts by usurpers, as well as the repercussions of external events, agitated the country and worsened its material and moral conditions.

X. CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION OF EGYPT DURING ANCIENT TIMES

To characterize the degree of culture and civilization of ancient Egypt, the study of religion (v. below) is undoubtedly of value, constituting one of the deepest and most enduring expressions of Egyptian life and thought; intimately connected with it are two other significant manifestations, literature and art.

Literature, entrusted to hieroglyphic writing in its varieties — hieratic, demotic and Greco-Coptic — is certainly the oldest surviving literature of the Eastern world; the great temple and tomb inscriptions, the numerous papyri, the ostraca, the wooden tablets have preserved a notable portion of these literary works, which already date back to the Old Kingdom, although they have come down to us in transcriptions of the Middle or New Kingdom. They consist of narrative compositions, of moral teachings, of which Egyptian literature seems particularly fertile; there are also epic and love songs and satires, hymns to the gods and to sovereigns, books of mathematics and medicine, the Middle Kingdom being considered the age of classical literature, subsequently held up as a model in the schools of the New Kingdom. Few names of authors: the prince Zedefhor, Imhotep and Ptahhotep in the Old Kingdom, Nefri in the Middle Kingdom and others. The oldest text is that of the Teachings of Ptahhotep of the Fifth Dynasty, preserved in the Prisse papyrus of the Louvre and in others of the British Museum. Among the narrative texts, characteristic are the Adventures of Sinuhe, the Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, the Tale of King Cheops and the Magicians, the Tale of the Two Brothers, the Journey of Wenamun, the Adventures of Seton Haemecós (v. AMEN-EM-OPE; ANI). There also exists an ancient Egyptian fable tradition; famous are the Rhind mathematical papyrus and the medical papyri Ebers, Smith, Chester Beatty and numerous and varied others. No less important was the tradition of good studies, with which Greek Egypt soon surrounded itself already through the work of the first Ptolemies with the founding of the museum and library of Alexandria, continued also in the Roman age and carried on by the Gnostics and then by the Christians in Roman and Byzantine Egypt.

Egyptian art, preserved not only in the great remains of architectural monuments — pyramids, mastabas, temples — but also in statues, bas-reliefs and paintings, has left us in tomb furnishings copious elements of every kind of minute object, which the scholar can still examine in the major museums of Cairo, London, New York, Paris, Turin and the Vatican. The characteristics of this art seem inspired by the idea of duration, that is, by the desire, on the part of the author and the patron, that the work should survive into the most distant centuries; moreover they aim at respect for tradition, so that Egyptian art seems constituted of a uniformity that is more apparent than real, and of an immobility that disappears under the accurate observation of scholars; nor is there lacking the bold and revolutionary parenthesis of the art of el-'Amarnah (v.) of Amenhotep IV; deservedly famous are the pyramids or the hypostyle hall of Karnak, with 124 columns, some of them 21 m. high, or statues such as the scribe of the Louvre or the Sheikh el-Beled of the Cairo Museum, or the statue of Rahotep and Nofret, also in the Cairo Museum, or such as the lady Takushit of Athens or the queen Nefertiti
of Berlin or the bas-reliefs and paintings, for example, of the tomb
of Shej or the alabaster vases of Cairo and the gold ones of Zaqaziq,
or the golden crown of Tvoosre of Bab el-Muluk or the jewels
of Dabshir or the diadems of the Cairo Museum.

V. Tcherkovev, The Jews in Egypt in the Hellenistic-Roman age
in the light of the Papyrri, Gerusalemme 1945; B. Maisler, Palestine at the times of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt, in Revue
histor. juive en Égypte, 1 (1947), p. 36 sg.; A. G. Roos, Joden en
Jodenervolgingen in het oude Egypte, in De Gids, 110 (1947),
p. 149 sg.; A. H. Gardiner, The Delta residence of the Pharaoh,
in Journal of Egyptian archaeology, 5 (1948), pp. 127, 177,
245 sg. - Lingua a letteratura: H. Schneider, Kultur und Denken

(da Encyclopédie photographique de l'art. La Marie du Caire,
Parigi 1918, fasc. 6)

EGYPT - Carved wooden panel from the tomb of Hezi-Ra',
3rd Dynasty, c. 2700 B.C. - Cairo, Museum.

der alter Aegypter, Leipzig 1909; W. Wresinski, Die Medizin
der alter Aegypter, 3 vols., ibid. 1909-11, p. 22 ff.; G. Maspero,
Les causes populaires de l'ancienne Égypte, 4th ed., Paris 1911;
P. Humbert, Recherches sur les sources égyptiennes de la littérature
suplentiale d'Israël, Neuchâtel 1919; W. Spiegelberg, Demotische
Grammatik, Heidelberg 1925; G. Farina, Grammatica della
lingua egiziana antica in caratteri geroglifici, 2nd ed., Milan 1926;
A. Erman-G. Grapow, Wörterbuch der aegyptischen Sprache, 5 vols.,
Leipzig 1926 ff.; A. Gardiner, Egyptian grammar, Oxford 1927;
Suppl., ibid. 1935; G. Roeder, Altägyptische Erzählungen und Män-
chen, Jena 1927; M. Pieper, Die aegyptische Literatur, Potsdam
1927; E. T. Peet, A comparative study of the literature of Egypt,
Palestine and Mesopotamia, London 1931; A. Erman, Die Literatur der Aegypter, Leipzig 1932; G. Lefebvre, Grammaire de
l'Égyptien classique, Cairo 1940; id., Romans et contes égyptiens de l'époque pharaonique, Paris 1949; P. Gilbert, La composition des recueils de poèmes amoureux égyptiens et celle du Cantique des Cantiques, in Chron. d'Égypte, 23 (1948), p. 22 ff.; id., La poésie égyptienne, Brussels 1949; B. Van De Walle, La transmission des textes littéraires égyptiens, ibid. 1948.

Aristide Calderini

III. RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT.

I. NOTES ON HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

Despite the abundance of religious texts and documents spread over more than thirty centuries of history, it is impossible to follow a gradual and logical development of the religion, since not all the individual phases of transition and the causes of change are known to us.

The most ancient religious documents, some of which go back to the predynastic period (vase and wall paintings), already attest to one of the concepts that would remain fundamental in the history of the religion of E., namely that of the numen loci, by which every divinity was closely bound to a specific place of worship. In fact each territorial district (nome) possessed from ancient times a religious standard surmounted by the representation, more or less stylized, of the object of worship. The use of these standards, carried in procession on certain occasions, was perpetuated even after the unification of the country. On them one sees depicted both inanimate objects (e.g., a shield with two crossed arrows, a scepter, a tree, etc.) and animals (a falcon, a crocodile, a jackal, etc.). These sacred symbols of the nomes were interpreted by some scholars as an indication of earlier animistic beliefs, by others as a remnant of totemic cults: in any case they are the most ancient religious documents, from which, however, a political meaning must not be separated.

At the beginning of the historical age, profound innovations are noted in iconography and in religious conceptions. The ancient divine symbols were replaced either by anthropomorphic divinities bearing (usually on the head) the ancient object of worship, or by theriocephalic divinities (in homage to the sacred animal). Another important novelty is constituted by the presence of cosmic divinities (also depicted as anthropomorphic) whose primitive forms are unknown. In many cases, moreover, as a result of a syncretistic process common in the religion of E., the cosmic divinities merged with the local ones and at times even supplanted them. Furthermore, since in every place, alongside the major divinities there were minor ones, a spontaneous desire for synthesis brought it about that a relationship of kinship was established among them, so as to create various divine families, mostly triads (a couple of parents with a child). In the course of time some divinities acquired specific attributes that modified and accentuated certain aspects of them; thus, for example, some gods were venerated as favorable to the dead, others as protectors of a particular social category, and this happened even outside the center of their cult. Nevertheless, in the epithets with which they are invoked there always remains a hint of the place of origin.

A determining factor in the development of the religion was undoubtedly that of historical events. In fact, already in the struggles that preceded the unification of E., the local divinities of a victorious sovereign prevailed over those of the defeated sovereign, so that while some divinities acquired a greater diffusion and fame, others almost disappeared. Even after unification, the favor enjoyed by certain gods, to the point of assuming an almost national character, is due to the fact of their having been the official ones of the place of origin of a reigning dynasty. Thus Horus, from the pre-Thinite age, became the dynastic god par excellence, and the sovereigns called themselves precisely "servants of Horus"; subsequently

Ptah of Memphis rose to great importance, then, with the advent of the Fifth Dynasty, originally from Heliopolis, the solar god Ra.

At the fall of the Old Kingdom, Amun, a secondary divinity of Thebes, was destined to acquire the highest honors, since he enjoyed the favor of the sovereigns of the Twelfth Dynasty, who reestablished order and peace in the country. Amun was soon assimilated to the solar god Ra, and Amun-Ra remained the dynastic and national divinity par excellence until the Saite period, despite the storm of the Hyksos (v.) and the religious schism of Amenophis IV (v.). Naturally the fame of these dynastic gods did not annul that of the various local cults, which continued to exist in parallel.

Two further factors determined notable developments in the religious field: theological speculation and divine legends. The first, due to the priests of the most famous sanctuaries, sought to establish a divine hierarchy founded on cosmogony. At its head stands the original divinity, on which the others depend in more or less direct filiation. Thus the most famous cosmogony, the Heliopolitan one, was formed by an ennead headed by Atum, himself born from Nun, the primordial ocean. Another important cosmogonic synthesis was the ogdoad of Hermopolis.

But these theological lucubrations were not comprehensible to the people, who from remote times had woven around the divinities dearest to them a series of fascinating legends in which the gods, despite their power, acted driven by human feelings and passions. Among all the legends, the one that by its profound meaning and its vitality permeated the entire religion of E. was the moving story of Osiris. From the most ancient testimonies, in the Pyramid Texts, down to the late Plutarchian account, the legend of Osiris is ceaselessly cited with ample variations in the religious literature of E. Originally Osiris was nothing but a very ancient divinized sovereign who, the victim of pathetic vicissitudes, subsequently became the protagonist of an agrarian myth that celebrated, with his death and rebirth, the perennial renewal of nature. But at the same time Osiris had risen to become the symbol and guarantee of human immortality, so that he represented for the Egyptians the prototype of the deceased reborn to the life of the afterlife.

In the last period of pharaonic civilization there were no great innovations in the religious field, but in many cases a return to ancient forms of worship such as theriolatry. The god Amun almost totally lost his influence, while the goddess Neith, protectress of the new capital, Sais, rose to great importance. The advent of the Ptolemaic age marks a further hybridism in the religious field, since the Hellenistic sovereigns, while respecting and honoring the ancient divinities, favored their assimilation with the Greek ones (Amun = Zeus; Horus = Apollo; Isis = Aphrodite, etc.). Then, through the work of Ptolemy II, the god Serapis rose to national importance, soon identified with Osiris and Zeus. The expansion of the cult of Serapis and Isis in the great cities of the Mediterranean, already begun in the Ptolemaic age and continued in the Roman age, marks the decline of the religion of E. The Isiac mysteries, like the Oriental ones in general, represented for the Hellenistic-Roman world an attempt at spiritual renewal through new religious experiences dense with esoteric meaning.

Christianity found the Egyptian religion in its death throes, so that it was easy for Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria to refute and ridicule its beliefs.

II. PRINCIPAL DEITIES

The major deities may be divided into: a) local, b) cosmic. Appar-

Belonging to group a): Ammon (v.) or Amun. - Anubis (v.). - Atum (v.). - Bastet, the cat-goddess worshiped at Bubastis; she presents the character of a joyful deity, protectress of music and dance. - Hathor, a goddess depicted with the head of a cow or with a human head surmounted by bovine horns, between which stands out the solar disk (the latter an indication of assimilation with a cosmic deity); the principal places of her cult were Aphroditopolis and Dendera. - Horus (v.). - Isis (v.). - Khnum, the ram-god, worshiped particularly at Elephantine. - Min, the Priapus of the Egyptians, represented ithyphallic and with the flagellum raised in the act of striking: a local deity of Coptos. - Mut, a vulture-goddess, who later became the spouse of Amun. - Nephthys (Nb.t-ht.t = "The lady of the palace"), a goddess who bears on her head the hieroglyph of her own name, worshiped at Diospolis Parva; in the legend of Osiris she appears as the sister of Isis. - Neith, a warlike goddess whose emblem consisted of two crossed arrows above a shield; the center of her cult was Sais. - Osiris (v.). - Ptah, the principal Memphite god, considered one of the primordial deities and depicted as a crude archaic idol, with his hands emerging from his belly. - Sekhmet (or Sakhmet = "The mighty one"), a lioness-goddess worshiped at Memphis and in a locality of the Delta. - Seth, a god who appears in the form of an animal not well identified (perhaps an okapi or a greyhound, in later times mistaken for a donkey), originally from Ombos, who from the most ancient times appears as the adversary of Horus and Osiris. His character as an evil deity is due above all to the part he plays in the legend of Osiris. - Sobek, the crocodile-god, native to the Fayum and to Kom Ombo. - Thoth (Djehuty), the ibis-god worshiped at Hermopolis Magna but originally from the Delta; assimilated to a cosmic deity he also became a god of the moon. Patron of scribes and accountants, he sometimes assumes, for reasons unknown, the appearance of a baboon.

Principal cosmic deities b): Geb (pron. Gheb), the god of the Earth (masculine in Egyptian) personified; he was imagined lying supine. - Hapi, the Nile god. - Nun, the primordial ocean from which all things were born and which surrounded the earth. - Nut, the goddess of Heaven (feminine in Egyptian) personified, spouse of Geb; she was depicted with the feet and fingers of her hands resting on the earth and the rest of her body raised in an arch above her husband. - Ra, the sun god, greatest among the cosmic deities, who, in addition to the two hypostases of Atum and Khepri (scarab-god), was assimilated with a great number of local deities: it suffices to recall Amun-Ra. It was imagined that Ra traversed the sky on two barques, one for the day and one for the night, accompanied by a retinue of lesser deities. - Shu, the god of the air, that is, of the space between Geb and Nut.

Among the lesser deities are to be remembered the goddesses Maat and Seshat, abstract personifications, the first of Truth, the second of Writing; among the sacred animals the famous bull Apis (Hp) held to be an incarnation of the soul of Ptah; among the demigods Imhotep, who in late times became the god of medicine. The people moreover worshiped a plethora of minor deities such as Bes, Taweret, Nefertum, etc.

6. - ENEICLOPEDIA CATTOLICA. - V.

Finally, a political factor of the greatest importance, the pharaoh himself was considered a god since he was a continuator of the lineage of Horus, the first god-sovereign who had reigned over the whole of Egypt. In the case of the succession of a dynasty that had no direct ties with the preceding one, curious theogamic legends were elaborated to authenticate the divine descent.

III. PRIESTS AND CULT

The god, considered in his own city as a sovereign, dwelt in the temple built of most solid stone. The archaic temples, on the other hand, must have been, according to the depictions that have come down to us, of very fragile material. Those that still today arouse wonder for their imposing size belong to the New Kingdom (Luxor, Karnak) or to the Ptolemaic age (Dendera, the island of Philae, Kom Ombo, etc.). The "house of the god," beginning with the XVIII dynasty, consisted essentially of a vast courtyard preceded by a propylaeum, of a hypostyle hall or vestibule, and of the sanctuary proper, which enclosed a labyrinth of rooms assigned to the various needs of the cult, and the Sancta Sanctorum containing the naos or tabernacle, the seat of the statue of the god. Access to the sanctuary, always immersed in a half-light given the absence of skylights and windows, was reserved for sovereigns and priests alone: the people could not advance beyond the vestibule.

The priestly hierarchy was based on three classes: the "pure," assigned to the humblest duties, the "readers," and the priests proper or "servants of the god," all under the direction of a high priest representing the pharaoh, who was the pontifex maximus. In many temples there were also priestesses assigned to dance, music and song. Every day, at dawn, the high priest, having opened the Sancta Sanctorum, sprinkled the statue of the god, then proceeded to anoint it, paint it and clothe it in new garments. Subsequently he placed on a table destined for this purpose solid and liquid foods: then he withdrew so that the divinity might refresh itself. Sacrifice and holocaust were foreign to the cult. All this daily rite was performed while reciting a formulary that has come down to us. On the great solemnities the statue of the god was shown to the faithful from the terrace of the sanctuary or else carried in procession (by means of a barque containing the naos) to a chapel in the vicinity of the temple, where it received solemn and public offerings. Under the New Kingdom these religious festivals reached a spectacular magnificence.

IV. THE DECEASED AND THE AFTERLIFE

One of the most typical aspects of the religion of E., already noted with wonder by the writers of classical antiquity, was the constant solicitude toward the dead. It sprang from the concept according to which the soul of man (ba [v.]), although leaving the body, could not survive its decomposition, so indissoluble was the bond that united the one to the other. Hence the constant preoccupation with preserving the corpse as long as possible by means of mummification, and with rendering it inviolable by means of an inaccessible tomb. The deceased, moreover, continued to be subject to the various material necessities of the life he had left.

Naturally, over the course of the millennial history of E. these needs were met in different ways, according to the times and the social conditions of individual deceased persons. In prehistoric times a simple pit received the corpse wrapped in skins, with knees and arms bent. At the beginning of the historical age the corpse was often first dried in the sun and wrapped in mats or the like, while over the tomb, built of bricks, a pile of stones was raised intended to prevent the access of wild beasts. The type of tomb with a superstructure of squared limestone blocks persisted throughout the Old Kingdom in the forms of the pyramid and the mastaba, with considerable development also of the underground part. From the New Kingdom, hypogea carved into the living rock were in use. As for mummification, although the first attempts date back to a very remote age, perfection was reached only under the New Kingdom. From the corpse were extracted the viscera and the brain, then it was immersed in a bath of resinous substances in a sodium solution, and finally it was entirely wrapped with a thick layer of long bandages impregnated with myrrh and aromas. The funerary equipment, consisting of one or more sarcophagi, personal objects of the deceased, furniture of various kinds, vases, statues and utensils of common use, was in every period extremely rich.

Regarding the beliefs about the afterlife and the moral concepts relating to it handed down to us by the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead, v. DER[T]; LIBRO DEI MORTI.

Sergio Bonicco

IV. CHRISTIANITY IN EGYPT.

The Gospel spread in E. already in the apostolic era. Well-founded tradition holds that St. Mark the Evangelist preached it in those lands where he was martyred (62-68).

The geographical and political structure of the country favored the development of a central ecclesiastical government, in which the capital Alexandria naturally became the seat. On Christianity in the first centuries and on the rise of the Alexandrian patriarchate, v. ALESSANDRIA d'E.: 3. Storia del patriarcato di A.: 4. I Concili di A.

In Alexandria already in the 2nd century the famous school was functioning, one of the most important theological centers of the Church (v. ALESSANDRIA d'E.: 2. La Scuola di A.). The Church in E. in the first two centuries enjoyed a certain peace, while elsewhere persecution raged. In the 3rd century and at the beginning of the 4th, violent persecutions also broke out in E.; thus under Septimius Severus (202 ff.), Decius (250) and Diocletian (264).

E. is the cradle of Eastern monasticism, with its centers of the Thebaid, Scetis, Nitria and with its splendid figures of Paul, Anthony, Pachomius, Shenoute and many others (v. MONACHISMO). Arianism (v.) had its origin in E. and disturbed its life for almost the whole of the 4th century. The fiercest adversary of that heresy was St. Athanasius (v.), bishop of Alexandria (328-73). Nestorianism, which did not enter E., found its most strenuous vanquisher in St. Cyril of Alexandria (v.). E., with its approximately one hundred dioceses, with its monasteries and cenobia and with the illustrious host of its Fathers, represented in the first four Christian centuries the most important sector of the East for the development of Christianity.

The heresy opposed to Nestorianism, Monophysitism, professed by Dioscorus, bishop of Alexandria, caused in E. a schism that persists to our own days. This heresy generated the schismatic Coptic Church (v. CORTI). Only a small minority remained Catholic. Even this minority of the Melkites fell into schism, dragged along by the example of Constantinople, at a time difficult to establish.

A unionistic movement of some significance began among the Copts only in the last century. The Catholics of the Byzantine rite and of the Arabic language in E. in 1773 were subjected to the Melkite patriarch of Antioch, who in 1838 obtained the personal privilege of bearing the title of patriarch of Alexandria. Thus there are in E. 4 Christian communities originating from the country itself: the Monophysite Copts, the dissident Greeks ("Orthodox"), the Catholic Copts and the Catholic Melkites. Added to these are other communities of groups that immigrated to E.: Armenians, Chaldeans, Syrians, Maronites, and Latins.

STATISTICS

Non-Catholics:

Catholics:

Here are the various ecclesiastical circumscriptions of the Catholics in E.: Armenians: bishopric with a titular bishop of Alexandria; Chaldeans: patriarchal vicariate in Cairo; Copts: patriarchate, seat Cairo; Melkites: general vicariate, Cairo; Latins: apostolic vicariate of E. (Alexandria), of the Nile Delta (Heliopolis, Cairo), of the Suez Canal (Port Said); Maronites: bishopric, Cairo; Syrians: patriarchal vicariate, Cairo.

E. is still a predominantly Muslim country (about 13 million). After the ancient periods of persecution, E. was the first Muslim country to establish diplomatic relations with the Holy See.

In Aug. 1947 the Egyptian government made an official request for this. Pope Pius XII, on 23 Aug. 1947, named his former apostolic delegate internuncio in E. Reciprocally, on 17 Oct. 1947 the first plenipotentiary minister of E. presented his credentials to the Pope.

The situation in E. is relatively good. However, the fact that the government has recently sought to suppress more or less the special legislation of the Christian communities in matters of family and marriage has aroused concerns and lively protests.

Dim.: In addition to the bibliographies indicated in the aforementioned entries. v. G. de Vries, Cattolicismo e problemi artistici nel prossimo Oriente, Rome 1944; Annuaire Catholique d'Egypte, Cairo 1946.

Guglielmo de Vries

V. MUSLIM EGYPT.

The history of Muslim E. may be considered divided into two great periods by the French occupation (1798-1801), which marks the beginning of European intervention and of the movement for national independence.

In the first period, from the Arab conquest to the French occupation (640-1798), Egypt was ruled successively by: 1) the governors of the caliphate (640-868; 905-35); 2) dynasties formally or substantially autonomous, together — except for partial or total intervals — with Syria (868-905; 935-1517); 3) the governors (pashas) of the Ottoman empire (1517-1798). In the second period, from the French occupation to our own day, the progressive phases of Egyptian independence are marked by the government of the dynasty of Muhammad 'Ali with the successive titles of: 1) pasha (1805-67); 2) khedive (1867-1914); 3) sultans (1914-22); 4) king (from 1922 onward).

I. FROM THE ARAB CONQUEST TO THE FRENCH OCCUPATION

1. The governors of the caliphate (640-868; 905-35)

The Arab conquest of E. took place under the command of 'Amr b. al-'Aṣ. Pelusium fell in 640, Babylon capitulated in 641, Alexandria in 642 (having subsequently risen in revolt, it was retaken in 646). The Pentapolis was conquered in 643. The successor of 'Amr b. al-'Aṣ, 'Abdallāh b. Sa'd (645-56), extended the conquest southward, reaching as far as Dongola (652).

The conquest was organized at first militarily, with its base at the camp of al-Fusṭāt, the future Cairo; the indigenous population was left its own administration, while tribute was exacted. Progressively, however, the country became Arabized ethnically and linguistically, and in parallel Islam gradually established itself.

From the conquest until 868, E. was governed by governors appointed by the caliphs. During the civil war between 'Alī and Mu'āwiyah, 'Amr b. al-'Aṣ conquered it for the latter (658). The anti-caliph 'Abdallāh b. az-Zubayr occupied it in the years 683-84.

After the dynasty of the Ṭūlūnids (v. below), there was a brief return of governors appointed by the caliphs (905-35), and then the series of autonomous dynasties resumed.

2. The autonomous dynasties (868-905; 935-1517). - They arose, in E. as in the rest of the Islamic world (v. ISLAM: the historical expansion), as a consequence of the dismemberment of the caliphate. They were founded by governors or military leaders. With the exception of the Fāṭimids, they paid formal homage to the 'Abbāsid caliphs; the Mamelukes sheltered their descendants in Cairo, after the killing of the last caliph of Bagdad (1258).

a) Ṭūlūnids (868-905). The founder of the dynasty is the Turk Aḥmad b. Ṭūlūn, who succeeded in asserting his autonomy from the caliphs and in annexing Syria (v.). The Ṭūlūnids reached their greatest splendor under his son Ḥumārawāḥ, then declined amid internal strife until they died out.

b) Ikhshīdids (935-69). After the brief return of the caliph's governors, Muhammad b. Tughj founded the new dynasty of the Ikhshīdids. He was succeeded by two sons, under the guardianship of the Abyssinian eunuch Kāfūr, who then in turn became sovereign. The Ikhshīdids ruled over E. and Syria, where they fought constantly against the Ḥamdānids. They were overpowered by the Fāṭimids.

c) Fāṭimids (969-1171). It is a Shi'ite dynasty of the Ismā'īlite branch (v. ISLAM: heterodox I.), which arose in North Africa in 909. The Fāṭimids assumed the title of caliphs, in opposition to the Sunni caliphate of Bagdad. In 969 Gawhar, general of the Fāṭimid caliph al-Mu'izz, conquered E., founding Cairo. Mecca and Medina, Palestine (v.) and southern Syria were also conquered; the conquest of the north was slower and more contested. On the other hand, the Fāṭimids lost North Africa (972). Internally, they organized the persecution of Sunnism, culminating under al-Ḥākim (996-1021), otherwise noted for the favor he granted to culture. Then decline began. The Mirdāsids made themselves independent in Aleppo (1023); the Seljuk conquest of Damascus put an end to Fāṭimid rule in Syria; the Crusades (v.) to that in Palestine. Internal discord led to the intervention of the Kurdish general Shirkūh, sent by the ruler of Damascus Nūr ad-dīn. The latter's son Ṣalāḥ ad-dīn (Saladin, v.) deposed the dynasty in 1171, restoring Sunnism and formal homage to Bagdad, and beginning the new Ayyūbid dynasty.

d) Ayyūbids (1171-1250). Saladin (1171-93) occupied Syria, Mesopotamia, the Yemen (through the agency of his brother Ṭūrānshāh) and retook Jerusalem (1187). At his death the kingdom was divided into various branches, over which supremacy was exercised first by his brother al-'Ādil Ṣaif ad-dīn (Saladin) and then by the latter's son al-Kāmil, in whose presence Francis preached. The struggle with the Crusaders continued with varying fortunes. Internally, the Turkish military (mamlūk, "slave," whence Mamelukes) progressively established themselves, and in 1250 they took power.

e) Mamelukes (1250-1517). They are divided into two branches, Baḥrī (1250-1390) and Burjī (1390-1517). They constituted a military oligarchy, only at times with a dynastic character. The major sovereigns were Baḥbāra, Qalā'ūn, an-Nāṣir, Barqūq, Qā'itbāy. The principal events of their rule: the victory over the Mongols ('Ayn Jālūt, 1260), which kept the latter far from E.; the definitive expulsion of the Crusaders (1291). The period of the Mamelukes was prosperous for E., which constituted the trade route between Europe and India. With the victory of Marj Dābiq (1516), the Ottoman empire overthrew the Mamelukes and reduced E. to a province of its own (1517); nevertheless the Mamelukes remained an important and powerful class in the country.

3. The Ottoman governors (1517-1798)

The Ottomans sent pashas to E., frequently replacing them and balancing their authority with that of the Mamelukes. In the last period, the latter succeeded in obtaining pashas of their liking. Except for the revolt of 'Alī Bey (1771), who briefly seized E. and Syria, there are no notable events in this period. E. declined progressively.

II. FROM THE FRENCH OCCUPATION TO THE PRESENT DAY

The French occupied Egypt from 1798 to 1801. Expelled by the Ottomans and the English, Egypt returned under Turkish rule. In the internal struggles that followed between Turks and Mamelukes, the Albanian commander Muḥammad 'Alī emerged, who in 1805 was recognized as pasha by the Ottomans.

1. The pashas (1805-67)

Muḥammad 'Alī (1805-49) brought down the power of the Mamelukes (massacre of 1811); he waged, in aid of the Ottoman sultan, a war against the Wahhabis (v.), concluded victoriously (1819), and intervened against Greece (1823-27). He conquered the Sudan (1820-23). Then, considering himself not justly compensated by the Porte, he made war on it (1831), defeating the Turks repeatedly in Syria (1832, 1839). The intervention of the European powers induced him to accept the Jīraddī of 1841, by which he received the government of Egypt on a hereditary basis. Internally, Muḥammad 'Alī organized the State in modern fashion with the aid of Europeans, established a national army, carried out irrigation and cultivation works, and promoted public education. His successor 'Abbās I (1849-54) was hostile to European advisers, but with Sa'īd (1854-65) English and French influence revived, to become established under Ismā'īl (1863-79), who in 1867 obtained from the Porte the title of khedive (khedīve) and then (1873) powers in some respects sovereign.

2. The khedives (1867-1913)

Ismā'īl extended the State to the south and continued internally on a large scale the work of renewal of Muḥammad 'Alī. In 1869 the Suez Canal was opened. These undertakings provoked an economic crisis and the consequent intervention of England and France in the administration and government. In 1879, at the instigation of these powers, the Porte deposed Ismā'īl. He was succeeded by Tawfīq (1872-92), under whom the nationalist revolt of 'Arabī Pasha broke out in 1881. This event, and then the massacre of Europeans that occurred at Alexandria in 1882, motivated the intervention of England, which occupied Egypt (1882) and restored Tawfīq to power. Meanwhile, the Sudan had risen under the leadership of the Mahdī (v.; 1881-85); it was retaken in the years 1896-98 and subjected to an Anglo-Egyptian condominium (1899). The English declared the occupation of Egypt temporary; Ottoman sovereignty and the government of the khedives remained theoretically in place. In practice the English consul Lord Cromer (1883-1907) and his successors controlled Egypt. In a convention of 1904 France consented not to demand a term to the English occupation. Tawfīq was succeeded by 'Abbās II (1892-1914). In this period the anti-British nationalist movement was organized through the work of Muṣṭafā Kāmil Pasha (d. 1908).

3. The sultans (1914-22)

At the outbreak of the First World War, England declared the protectorate over Egypt and appointed a high commissioner. Ḥusayn Kāmil was placed on the throne with the title of sultan. He was succeeded in 1917 by Fu'ād. At the end of the war, the nationalist party (wafd), led by Zağlāl Pasha, demanded independence. Long negotiations, revolts and repressions followed. In 1922 England recognized the independence of Egypt, while maintaining the occupation pending the resolution of the following problems: security of English communications; defense of Egypt; protection of foreigners and minorities; Sudan. Fu'ād assumed the title of king.

4. The kings (from 1922)

In 1923 the new constitution was promulgated, on the Belgian model: the parliament was formed by the chamber of deputies, elected by universal suffrage, and by the senate, also elective except for two fifths of

(from E. Monneret de Villard, Les couvents prix de Sokás, I, Milan 1923, pl. 3)
EGYPT - Plans of the White Monastery (reconstruction).

royal appointment. During the reign of Fu'ād I (1922-36), ministries of various tendencies alternated; but the Wafd always held predominance, and the amendment of the constitution, approved by the king in 1930 and intended to reduce the power of parliament, had to be withdrawn subsequently (1934). The negotiations with England on the questions that remained open led in 1930 to the MacDonald proposals: withdrawal of English troops to the Suez Canal; English dominion in the Sudan. The Wafd rejected the proposals. In 1936 Fārīq ascended the throne. In the same year a treaty was concluded with England on the basis of the following points: end of the occupation and appointment of an ambassador; twenty-year alliance to be renewed; permanence of English troops on the Suez Canal until Egypt's capacity to ensure its defense was recognized; condominium in the Sudan. In 1937 the Montreux conference sanctioned the end of capitulatory jurisdiction for foreigners in Egypt, with a transitional period of 12 years. In the Second World War, Egypt placed territory and bases at England's disposal, in accordance with the alliance; in 1945 it declared war on Germany, obtaining entry into the United Nations Organization. In the same year the Arab League was constituted in Cairo, promoted by Egypt, an important body for liaison among the Arab states of the Near East. From 1946 the Egyptian governments (in which the nationalist movement had a less dominant part than in the period of Fu'ad) have again confronted the problem of relations with England, demanding the evacuation of the Suez Canal and sovereignty over the Sudan. The problem, brought in 1947 before the United Nations Organization, has not yet been resolved. The English have in the meantime favored an autonomist movement in the Sudan (al-Ummah) and issued constitutional reforms (1948). In 1949, as foreseen, capitulatory jurisdiction for foreigners ceased.

In general: S. Lane-Poole, A history of Egypt in the Middle Ages, London 1904; C. H. Becker, Bestredes zur Geschichte Aegypten unter dem Islam, Strasbourg 1902; Précis de l'histoire d'Egypte: II. H. Munier-G. Wirt, L'Egypte byzantine et musulmane, Cairo 1932, pp. 107-114; III. E. Combe-J. Bainville-E. Briault, L'Egypte ottomane, l'expédition française en Egypte et le règne de Mohamed-Aly, 1817-1849, ibid. 1933; IV. A. Sammarco, Les risques de l'Abbas, de Sa'id et d'Isaïl (1848-1879), Rome 1935 (fundamental); G. Hanotaux, Histoire de la nation égyptienne, IV-VII, Paris 1934-40; C. H. Peathas, Histoire de l'Egypte depuis la conquête ottomane, ibid. 1948.

On the conquest: A. J. Butler, The Arab conquest of Egypt and the last thirty years of the Roman dominion, Oxford 1902. On the governors of the caliphate (includes the Tulunids and Ikhshidids): F. Wüstenfeld, Die Statthalter von Ägypten zur Zeit der Chalifen, 4 vols., Göttingen 1875-76. On the Tulunids: Z. M. Hassan, Les Tofimides, Etude de l'Egypte musulmane à la fin du IXe siècle, Patin 1933. On the Ikhshidids: Ibn Sa'id, Kitab al-muqrib fi haid al-muqrib, IV. Geschichte des Haiden und Postdatensische Biographien, ed. and reworked with notes and indexes by K. L. Talhviri, Leiden 1896. On the Fatimids: F. Wüstenfeld, Geschichte der Fatimiden-Chalifen, Göttingen 1881; De Lacy O'Leary, A short history of the Fatimid caliphate, London 1942; P. H. Mamour, Palemics on the origin of the Fatimid caliphs, ibid. 1934. On the Mamluks: W. Muir, The Mameluba or their dynasty of Egypt, London 1896 (Arabic trans., Cairo 1924); W. Niemeyer, Aegypten zur Zeit der Manilaben, Berlin 1936. From the French occupation onward: A. Hasenlevert, Geschichte Aegypten in 19. Jahrhundert 1798-1914, Halle 1917. On Muhammad 'Ali: M. Sabey, L'empire égyptien sous Mohammed Aly et la question d'Orient (1811-1849), Paris 1930; A. Sammarco, Il regno di Mohammed Ali in the unpublished Italian diplomatic documents, I, Cairo 1930; VIII-X, Rome 1931-32. On Isma'il: G. Douin, Histoire du règne du khédive Ismaïl, I, Rome 1933; II, ibid. 1934; III, Cairo 1936-38; G. Guindy Bey and G. Tager, Ismaïl d'après les documents officiels, ibid. 1946. On English policy: Lord Cromer, Modern Egypt, 2 vols., London 1908; Lord Lloyd, Egypt since Cromer, 2 vols., ibid. 1933-34. On the Sudan: R. L. Hill, A bibliography of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan from the earliest times to 1937, Oxford-London 1930; J. S. Trimingham, Islam in the Sudan, London 1949. On the nationalist movement: E. Klingmüller, Geschichte der Wafd-Partei, Berlin 1937. On the most recent events: F. Gabrieli, Egitto, in Enc. Ital., app. II, A-H, pp. 820-21; chronicles and documents in the periodicals Oriente Moderno (Rome), Cahiers de l'Orient contemporain (Paris), The Middle East Journal (Washington), Sabatino Moscati

## VI. CHRISTIAN ART OF EGYPT.

The development of Christian art in E. is dominated by certain fundamental conditions that must always be kept in mind. The first is the existence of Alexandria, Alexandria ad Aegyptum or ἡ πρὸς Αἰγύπτῳ, which does not mean that it was considered part of E.: on the contrary, it is officially separated from it. Alexandria is a city of fully Greek culture, pagan, opulent through trade, the cradle of an art that belongs to the Hellenistic cycle of the great eastern metropolises. This art has a development of its own, quite distinct from that observed in the Nile valley, except in certain localities where the Greek element prevails and perpetuates until the 6th century, along with a paganism slow to die, the traditions of a culture and an art quite different from that which reflects the tendencies and visions of the indigenous population. This persistence of paganism, which does not end until the age of Justinian, must always be kept in mind; there is also the characteristic that Christianity in E. soon assumes with the spread and then the prevalence of the Monophysite heresy, creating a sharp contrast with the environment and the Greek-Byzantine class, decidedly Melkite. Monophysitism, propagated mainly by Syrians, increases their importance in the cultural development of the country, and therefore also in that of art. One must not forget, moreover, that E. is the natural route of the great eastern trade, even with India, and from this arises the creation of contacts, the establishment of foreign colonies in the country (Nabataean and Palmyrene) with evident influences on forms. Thus there are found in E. between the 2nd and 6th centuries two currents, two distinct tendencies that react upon one another and do not merge until quite late, on the eve of the Muslim conquest. One derives from late Syrian Hellenism, the other, distinctly indigenous, perpetuates or renews popular Asiatic motifs. From the term qibj (= Egyptian) the word Coptic was formed, and it is quite improperly used to call all the Christian art of E. Coptic: a term that can be used only for brevity.

The division into periods of the Christian art of E. is quite simple. A first paleo-Christian period, represented by some catacombs of the Alexandrian region, has no peculiar characteristic, but belongs to the great Mediterranean cycle: properly Egyptian Christian art can be divided into two periods, with essentially different characteristics. The first goes from the origins to the Muslim conquest (640-42), the second from that moment to our own times.

The oldest Christian monuments of E., after the catacombs mentioned above, are perhaps some tombs of the cemetery of Oxyrhynchus (al-Bahnasa), which present the type of small single-nave churches provided with an apse, and the mausoleums of the necropolis of Baqawat in the oasis of al-Khārga, the former built in stone with Hellenizing structures, the latter instead executed in crude brick according to the traditional indigenous procedure and for the most part with a square plan covered by a dome, that is, in a structure absolutely non-Hellenistic. Already from these first examples the aforementioned discord is marked. These tombs of al-Khārga (whose greatest interest, however, lies in the paintings that decorate their walls) besides the use of the dome also present that of the ovoid arch with three centers, itself clearly of Asiatic tradition, and of short columns with strong [entasis] according to a model quite far from the classical one. Leaving aside the great basilica built in the times of the emperor Arcadius (345-408) on the tomb of St. Menas in the Mareotis, of an imported type characteristically Mediterranean, the current of late Syrian Hellenism reveals itself in the great church of the White Monastery (Deyr al-Abyad) near Sohāg, built around 430 by the Byzantine count Caesarius for the monastery of the great monk Shenute: it is a basilica with three naves, with a narthex and with a sanctuary with a triconch cell, that is, with three apses arranged in a trefoil, according to a structure characteristic of Syria, where it is used not only in churches but also in the great halls of palaces, as at Boşrā or in the palace described in the Acts of St. Thomas, a text of undoubted Syrian origin. This form of sanctuary is found in the same period in the church of the Red Monastery (Deyr al-Ahmar) not far from the White Monastery and in that built in front of the facade of the temple of Hathor at Dendera. To the same Hellenistic current belongs the basilica that stood near Armant, destroyed at the beginning of the 19th century but of which good records fortunately remain in the reliefs of the French scientists of the Egyptian expedition of the Napoleonic era: this basilica had two opposed apses, each at one of the ends of the central nave, a type that is repeated in the basilica of the baths near the sanctuary of St. Menas and in the Byzantine constructions of Marsa Matrāh. All these churches are generally built in carefully squared ashlar stone, with tall monolithic columns and with a very wide nave (that of the White Monastery has an opening of 12.50 m), which requires timber of considerable dimensions to be covered. All this presupposes powerful economic means, especially for the timber that had to be imported from Syria, since E. does not possess trees with large trunks usable for construction. It is therefore understandable that these are foundations of the great Byzantine lords who must have called the architects from their own milieu rather than from the indigenous one. To the same group of monuments are linked, with more modest programs, the church of Deyr abū Ḥinnis (monastery of St. John) near Antinoe and that of the monastery of St. Apollo at Bāwīt near Deirāt. All these buildings have their interior walls richly decorated with niches of complicated forms and with small columns whose shafts are worked with geometric ornaments, a characteristic that also comes from Syria, where the most beautiful examples are perhaps in those small columns reused in the Muslim era for the construction of the

[colonnade] of the mosque of Diyarbakr. That part of the walls that was not adorned with sculptures was completely covered with frescoes.

A far less ambitious program is the one adhered to by the indigenous milieu. Since the earliest Christian times numerous hermits populated the Egyptian desert, and most often they fixed their residence in ancient tombs of the pharaonic era: they transformed these not only into a residence but also into chapels, building or carving into them niches that were to serve as an apse. Examples of such a conversion into buildings are found scattered throughout the entire Nile valley, but perhaps the most interesting and the most easily accessible are among the tombs of Benihasan and of Mir near al-Qusiya, a tomb of es-Seikh Sa'id not far from Mallawi, the tomb of Penchse at Tell al-'Amirna, that of Ramses IV at Bibân al-Mulûk and those bearing numbers 84, 95 and 97 at Seikh 'abd el-Qurna in the Theban necropolis. Further south a tomb near Esna is most notable for the paintings that decorate its walls, unfortunately still unpublished. Around these hermitages small monasteries gradually arose, where the tomb transformed into a church served as a sanctuary for the community: the cells and the storerooms arose in the free space around them and later the whole was surrounded by a wall and provided with a tower (gausaq) for defense against the desert raiders. One of the most complete examples of this type of monastery is given by that of Epiphanus at Seikh 'abd al-Qurna: but from the liturgical point of view the most important is that of the valley of the Queens (Bibân al-Harîm). There a second church was built in the square in front of the grotto: it has a square plan and was covered by a dome: the apse was built inside an ancient Christian tomb with a brick barrel vault, probably the tomb of the founder and therefore above his corpse, thereby clearly marking the character of altar-tomb.

But the Christians not only made use of the ancient pharaonic tombs, but also took possession of the temples, installing their churches inside them. Note however that they never thought of transforming into a church the sanctuary properly so called where the image of the deity was kept, but instead used only the secondary rooms. Unfortunately modern scholars, in their hasty desire to bring to light the ancient vestiges, almost always caused the traces of this Christian occupation to disappear: one of the rare cases where they can still be well studied is at es-Sebû'a in Nubia. Many times such churches were installed in the vestibule of the temple (Dendera, Edfu, Esna, Philae): at Karnak it was in the great festival hall of Thutmosis III, where the columns still bear traces of large figures of saints. One of the most interesting examples is that of the church that was installed in the second court of the temple of Medinet Habu, whose structure can be exactly reconstructed by means of the reliefs executed by Wilkinson around the middle of the 19th century. In any case the Christians rarely demolished the ancient temples, but contented themselves with covering the bas-reliefs of the walls with plaster, in order then to trace their inscriptions and their paintings on it.

Most often, however, they built their churches ex novo, on free ground. The most interesting examples prior to the 6th century, going from north to south, are the church of Taposiris in the Mareotis, that of Tebtunis (Tell Umm el-Breigât) in the Fayum, the small basilicas in the convent of St. Jeremiah at Saqqâra, that of the Dayr Abû Fânâ north of Ašmunein, the church in the dromos of the temple of Medamûd, the basilica west of the temple of Luqṣôr, a small basilica at Seikh 'abd al-Qurna in the Theban necropolis, the church near the fortified gate of Ramses III at Medinet Habû, that of Tûd and the eastern church of Philae, one of the rare monuments epigraphically dated, having been built under Bishop Theodore between 525 and 578 ca. All these churches always lack an atrium, but almost always have a narthex, sometimes decorated with niches, as at Medamûd. The entrance doors are generally on the facade, but in some cases the entrance is opened in the side walls (Bâwît, western church of Philae, Seikh 'abd al-Qurna) according to a characteristically Syrian and Mesopotamian arrangement. The apse is never free and projecting (except in the clearly Byzantine case of Abû Mînâ) but is always hidden behind a flat wall. This apse presents various forms: at Bâwît it consists of a rectangular room that occupies the entire width of the church. The most widespread type is that of a semicircular apse enclosed between two square or rectangular rooms, which seem to have served as sacristies, as in Syria. At Philae the southern room serves as a stairwell, and at Tûd there are instead two rooms on each side of the apse and this is preceded by a rectangular bay of the type found in Syria at Qalb Lauzeh and at Qanawât. At the small basilica of Seikh 'abd al-Qurna there is instead a rectangular apse enclosed between two square chambers, another characteristically Syrian structure. At Taposiris there is a semicircular apse placed between two square chambers and a narrow, long rectangular room behind the apse and communicating only with the northern chamber: a structure that connects with several Mesopotamian examples of the Tûr 'Abdîn and that is found again later at the convent of St. Simeon near Aswân. A development of this structure is found in the basilica of the baths at Abû Mînâ where the corridor truly connects the two rooms beside the apse: examples of it are found in Syria at Hûsan Nîha and at the so-called tomb of Aaron on Mount Hor, and it will be one of the characteristics of the Christian architecture of Nubia. In churches with side entrances the western wall has a large rectangular niche in the middle, which might be called a reminiscence or an atrophization of an apse opposed to the western one. A unique and most interesting case is given by the basilica of Luqṣôr where, on the basis of some surviving elements and ancient reliefs, it is perhaps possible to restore a type of apse with ambulatory. The body of the church is generally divided into three naves by two rows of columns: but in some cases (cemeterial basilica of Abû Mînâ, two basilicas at Saqqâra, Dayr Abû Fânâ, the two basilicas of Medinet Habû, eastern church of Philae) besides the two rows of longitudinal columns there is a third that runs parallel to the facade wall, so that the side aisles go around the central nave also toward the west. It is a type that will be perpetuated in the late Middle Ages in the churches of Old Cairo. All these churches were covered with wooden roofs.

The problem of the baptistery in E. is of quite difficult solution given the few cases in which it has been preserved. In the Byzantine basilica of Abū Mînâ it is of the type widespread throughout the Mediterranean world, octagonal internally and square externally, with semicircular niches corresponding to the corners, placed on the western side of the atrium, opposite the basilica. In truly Egyptian constructions it is preserved only at Luqṣôr and at Medamûd. In the first case it consists of an apsidal room in which the rectangular bay is separated from the apse part by two columns: in the rectangular bay there is a well while the baptismal font stands in the apsidal part and is of truncated-conical shape, hollowed out in the ground, and one descends to the bottom by means of two small stairways of three high steps each. At Medamûd the baptistery consists of a square room south of the church and leaning against it, accessible from the southern side aisle and with a simple round font.

Christian architecture in Egypt after the Arab conquest (640-42) has left us a great many monuments, only a small part of which has so far been studied in such a way that one can speak of them with confidence. In any case, two characteristics stand out clearly: the first is the abandonment of the old Hellenistic basilical type, the second is the renunciation of covering the church with timber roofs, replacing these with vaulted coverings. Basilical structure and timber roofs are preserved only in the churches of Old Cairo (Babylon of Egypt), especially in that of St. Barbara and that of St. Sergius, which today appear in a form they received in the 12th-13th century, but which in all probability is nothing other than the reconstruction of earlier buildings perhaps going back to the 5th-6th century and which has preserved their ground plan and manner of covering. These churches have galleries (matronea), which confirms their link with prototypes of the Hellenistic-Byzantine type.

Another group of monuments with common characteristics and topographically compact is formed by the monasteries of Wādī en-Naṭrūn, namely Deyr Suryāni, Deyr Amba Bīšūi, Deyr el-Barāmūs and Deyr Abū Maqār. The most important is the first, rebuilt after the sack and destruction of the year 817: tradition attributes the new fabric to two monks of Takrit in Mesopotamia, Mattai and Abraham. There are two principal churches in the monastery: the smaller, dedicated to the Virgin, reproduces a type of monastic church characteristic of the Tūr 'Abdīn, that is, composed of a rectangular narthex covered by a barrel vault, of a choir also rectangular with a north-south axis, likewise covered by a barrel vault, and of a triple sanctuary formed by three rectangular chambers, of which the middle one is covered by a dome while the other two have barrel vaults whose axis is perpendicular to that of the vault of the choir and narthex. The great church of the monastery, likewise dedicated to the Virgin, is a basilica whose body consists of a broad nave flanked by two side aisles that also run along the western wall, all covered with barrel vaults. There follows a rectangular choir with a north-south axis, divided into three bays of which the central one is covered with a dome and the two lateral ones by two half-domes, reproducing a structure found in the church of the Virgin at Ḥāḥ in Mesopotamia: the sanctuary is analogous to that of the small church.

At the southern extremity of Egypt there are two churches, that of the monastery of St. Simeon at Aswān and that of cā-Sēkhān, which have very similar characteristics, in that the sanctuary is trefoil, having a dome at the center and three half-domes on the three arms, and the central nave is covered with two domes in the first case and with a single dome in the second. They are two monuments probably of the end of the 10th or the beginning of the 11th century. A last building of singular importance, datable to the early Middle Ages, is the small basilica that stands about fifty meters north of tomb no. 25 of Qurnet Mur'ai in the Theban necropolis: it is of that type which was called "église cloisonnée", that is, having the division between the nave and the side aisles made with solid walls in which only small doors are opened. It is the only example of this type so far known in Egypt. Among the secondary monuments one must remember the church of Deyr al-Šuḥadā (convent of the Martyrs) near Esna and a group of buildings in the region of Naqāda and Qamūla, especially those of al-'Adra and of Mārī Girgis al Deyr al-Magmā', the last of which shows a system of parallel vaults on transverse arches according to a Sasanian Persian type. But the structure most widespread in the late Middle Ages is that of a rectangular building divided by arches carried predominantly on pillars into many squares, each of which is covered by a dome: they even reach the number of 29 in the church of Amba Pakhām near Medamūd. The finest example is perhaps that of Deyr al-Maḥarraq.

Sculpture was conceived in Christian Egypt as a decorative aid to architecture and not as having a life of its own: statuary therefore disappears completely. The art of working hard stones (diorite, porphyry, etc.), which had been a specialty and a glory of the country, also disappears: the only material now used is limestone, except for the columns and capitals, for which syenite could still be cut. And notable and characteristic of Egypt is a wide use of wood sculpture in the decoration of monuments.

For an initial period the most interesting examples of sculpture are a series of niche basins with curiously jagged pediments and with human figures treated in strong high relief and with a clearly coloristic use of pronounced contrasts of voids and solids, with a skillful balancing of masses and interplay of light and shadow with a clearly Baroque vision, which were found mainly at Ahnâs al-Madina, ancient Heracleopolis, but of which interesting examples also come from other localities, especially al-Bahassa. They are sculptures almost all with pagan subjects, and must therefore be reconnected with those rich and powerful aristocratic groups that dominated Middle Egypt, of Hellenistic culture and hostile to the new religion. Stylistically these sculptures are nothing other than the derivation of a characteristic Syrian school and are linked with others from the Nabataean region, especially with those found at Khirbet et-Tannur. With the end of the 5th century and probably with the fading away of these pagan groups, this school disappears. Even the most important examples of wood sculpture up to the 5th-6th century, some pieces from Bâwît and above all the beautiful wooden door of the primitive church of St. Barbara in Old Cairo (now in the Coptic Museum), are in the purest Hellenistic tradition of the art of Alexandria or of Antioch. The ivory sculpture, of which there are so many magnificent monuments coming from the workshops of Alexandria, has left us very few that can be attributed with relative certainty to Egypt properly so called, with a predominance of the monumental style as against the Hellenistic picturesque. The most notable are that of the Louvre with the representation of St. Mark enthroned among the patriarchs his successors, and the five-part diptych coming from Murano and now at Ravenna, which Strzygowski considers a product of the monastic art of Upper Egypt. The sculpture proper to Egypt, poor in figured monuments, instead assumes a richness and an extraordinary genius of invention in decorative works, capitals, friezes, revetment slabs and even funerary stelae. The repertoire of motifs is of an abundance that defies any classification: the decoration covers every element whatsoever, with evident tendencies toward that horror of the void which is one of the peculiar characteristics of Oriental art.

Wall painting also contributes largely to this: one can say that every part of the Egyptian religious building that was not adorned with carved reliefs was covered with paintings, which perform that function which in contemporary Byzantine art will be performed by mosaic. This was very rarely employed in Egypt: the text of Abû Sâlih (13th century), so precious for the study of Egyptian religious archaeology, cites only two examples of figured mosaics: the first in the church of the Apostles at the monastery of St. Arsenius at al-Qusair founded by the Melkite patriarch Eustathius (802-804), which represented the Virgin with the angels and the twelve Apostles, and the second in the church of St. Pachomius at Fâ'ô, of which it is not known what it depicted. Since Eustathius was a Melkite, one can be certain that the work he had executed was a product of imported Byzantine craftsmen. The only mosaic existing today in a church of Egypt is found in a niche in the monastery of St. Anthony and rap-

represents a triumphal cross. On the other hand, we are extensively documented on wall painting, since very large cycles have been preserved. The oldest are those of the funerary chapels of the necropolis of Baqawat in the oasis of al-Kharga (4th century?), of which, however, a large part, both iconographically and stylistically, connects with Alexandrian art. Yet already there appear in them many of the characteristics that would later be peculiar to Egyptian painting, namely the very wide use of frontality, the symmetrical arrangement of the figures, a static representation generally on a single plane, without any hint of background or details of setting — what is generally indicated by the term "monumental style," characteristic of Asiatic expression and whose example goes back to the paintings of Dura-Europos. The greatest Egyptian examples of this style are given to us by the pictorial cycles of Bawit and Saqqara. There, although some Hellenistic trace survives in the decorative friezes, the ornamental and symbolic part grows ever weaker to make room for historical painting, and the landscape treatment disappears to be replaced by monumental representation. Another characteristic appears there clearly: the taste for portraiture, whose tradition goes back to the 2nd-3rd century, that is, to that school of craftsmen who executed the funerary tablets of the Fayum in fully Hellenistic style, but translated into monumental forms. This tendency toward portraiture, which leads to personalizing every figure, applied to the representation of sacred personages, also confers on the ideal images of the Savior, of the Virgin, of the Apostles, of the Evangelists an individual character and tends to crystallize their type. It is well known how these artistic tendencies would have a profound influence on Byzantine art itself, and one may say that the impulse came from Egypt. Iconographically, Egyptian painting of the early Middle Ages already shows from that time certain characteristics that it would preserve for centuries: for example, the practice of representing almost all the local saints on horseback, almost like warriors victorious over the spirits of evil.

After the great paintings of Bawit and Saqqara, which represent, in the state of our knowledge, the moment of greatest splendor of Egyptian painting of the first centuries, we are poorly documented until around the 11th century, when a new influence becomes apparent, that of Armenian art. A large, rich and powerful colony of Armenians had by then formed in Egypt: among them there were also artists. It is therefore to an Armenian painter that the decoration of the great apse conch of the White Monastery is due. A current of Syrian painting, of high artistic value and still insufficiently studied, seems to be localized only in the Monastery of the Syrians at Wadi an-Natrun (Deir al-Suriani). In the southern apse of the choir are represented the Annunciation and the Nativity, and the inscriptions
there are in Syriac, except for the name of Joseph, which is written
in Greek: in the western apse, at the end of the nave,
there is the Assumption with the names of Jesus, of the apostles
Andrew and Simon Peter, of the Sun and of the Moon written in
Syriac, while the last is also reproduced in Coptic:
in the northern apse of the choir is represented the death
of the Virgin with the name of Christ written in Syriac.
It is thought that these paintings can be dated to the era of the
superior of the monastery Moses of Nisibis (907-44), to whom
perhaps the stuccoes of the sanctuary in
Mesopotamian style are also due. Egyptian painting of the late Middle Ages
no longer has any value as art, just as the painting
of icons does not, of which the oldest known to us do not date
from before the 15th century.

Miniature is an art also widely
diffused in Egypt. At the beginning its great development was given
by Alexandria with a magnificent series of manuscripts
that are known to us, if not all in originals, at least in
very ancient copies and which show the greatest triumph
of the Alexandrian picturesque style: but already with the
various copies of the Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes
one sees the monumental style penetrating into it. By contrast,
Egypt, with the papyrus fragments of the Alexandrian
Chronicle, perhaps from the beginning of the 5th century, has left us
a work of quite different tendency and where the indigenous
character, penetrated by
old Oriental traditions, is more clearly shown. And it is these that definitively
triumph when, at the end of the 6th century,
one may say that the Hellenistic art of Alexandria disappears.
We have at our disposal a numerous series of
illustrated manuscripts that allow us to follow exactly
the development of Egyptian miniature, inasmuch as
they are for the most part dated, with subscriptions
of scribes and painters, and of which it is most often
quite easy to determine the place of execution. And
one can thus well follow a characteristic tendency,
namely that of gradually abandoning the
technique of a true painting to move toward
that of a pen drawing filled in with colors. The
masterpiece of properly indigenous miniature
of Egypt is given by Coptic manuscript 13 of the National Library of Paris, with strong Mesopotamian influences, of the 12th century. But in the same period
we see another school of artists forming, one strongly influenced, especially in decoration, by contemporary Muslim art: the masterpiece of this
tendency is that four-gospel book in two volumes, of
which one is preserved at the Catholic Institute of Paris
and the other at the Coptic Museum of Cairo. It is this school
that gains the upper hand and will last until the 17th century,
though with increasingly inferior works. The history of
Egyptian miniature has yet to be written.

Among the minor arts, the one that has left us the greatest
number of documents is the decoration of fabrics, of which
the dry Egyptian sands have preserved very interesting
examples. Those with decoration woven in wool are
executed with a technique identical to that of the Franco-Flemish
arrases, which is documented in Egypt from
high antiquity, of which examples are the fragments with the name of Amenhotep II (ca. 1500 B.C.) and of Thutmose IV (ca. 1466
B.C.), a technique analogous to that of some fragments found in Greek tombs of the Crimea of the 11th or 19th century B.C.
In Egypt the places of the most abundant finds (Saqqada,
Arsinoe, Akhmim, Antinoe, Armant, Hawara, etc.) are
scattered throughout the whole country, which shows the diffusion of
procedures always similar. The decoration generally consists
of bands, clavi, and square
or round inlays, rota. Christian weaving is therefore
technically nothing but the unaltered continuation of
pagan weaving, and the only difference lies in the motifs represented. In a relatively advanced era, however, some technical variation is observed, approaching that of brocades. There are, however, also fabrics decorated
with completely different techniques: these are linens in
which the ornament is obtained by coloring according to
a procedure (already mentioned by Pliny) that comes very
close to that of batik. The linen with the Bacchic scenes
found by Gayet at Antinoe is the finest pagan example
of it, not later than the 4th-5th century; the one with Daniel
of the Berlin Museum is the most notable among the Christian ones.
There are also linens decorated with motifs stamped with
carved wooden blocks. Finally, one must remember the
examples of silk weaving found in Egyptian tombs,
especially at Akhmim and at Antinoe, of which some are
certainly products of local workshops, while others
prove to be imported from Syria, from Sasanian Persia
and perhaps also from Central Asia.

Finally, an industry specifically Egyptian is that
of ivory inlays in wood: the doors of the Monastery of the Syrians at Wadi an-Natrun offer us perhaps
the finest example of it. The ceramics of Christian Egypt, however interesting, never rose to productions of true art.

Ugo Monnerer de Villard

VII. SCHOOL SYSTEM OF EGYPT.

The Ministry of Public Education, the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of War
e della marina si sono proposti di collaborare per
eliminate illiteracy, the greatest scourge hindering the organization of political and cultural life.

È resa obbligatoria l'istruzione dai 12 ai 18 anni
per i giovani e dai 12 ai 15 anni per le ragazze. Esistono
1949 scuole maschili e 728 scuole femminili e numerosi
corsi obbligatori per i membri della polizia a delle forze
armate. Diverse organizzazioni private e privati hanno
fondato piccole scuole chiamate maktak dove vengono
istrutti ragazzi e ragazze nella lettura del Coruno, nella
scrittura e matematica. I datori di lavoro sono obbligati
dalla legge a far istruire i propri dipendenti. Oltre alla lotta
contro l'analfabetismo il governo egiziano si preoccupa
della formazione della classe dirigente ed a questo scopo
ha ridotto l'insegnamento delle lingue straniere, elevando
dall'anno 1950 l'insegnamento della lingua araba che è
la lingua ufficiale. In tutte le scuole deve essere coltivato
il sentimento panarabo e la religiosità musulmana. Nelle
scuole private è vietato d'insegnare agli allievi dottrine
religione diverse dalla loro convinzione religiosa. L'insegnamento dell'arabo non è obbligatorio in quelle scuole
private (inglesi, francesi, italiane e greche), dove il numero degli allievi egiziani è inferiore al 15%.

L'istruzione egiziana comprende i giardini d'infanzia; le scuole elementari chiamate kuttāb (divise in
governative, private sotto l'ispezione governativa diretta
e straniere sotto ispezione governativa indiretta); le
scuole secondarie e le università. L'Università islamica
al-Azhar fondata il 21 giugno 972 dal generale Gawhar
sotto i Fāṭimidi: imprime lo spirito religioso e politico
a tutto il mondo dell'islam; l'Università Fu'ād I fondata
al Cairo nel 1908 e l'Università Farūq I fondata ad Alessandria il 2 ag. 1942.

There also exist the schools of the Coptic Church, which comprise 12 schools for boys and 4 schools for girls
del tutto insufficienti per 850.000 fedeli. La Chiesa
copta unita conta nelle tre diocesi di Alessandria, di
Ermopolis e di Tebe 31 scuole per ragazzi, 1 scuola per
ragazze, 1 Petit séminaire e 1 Theological seminary per
20.000 fedeli. - Vedi tavv. XI-XIV.

Miroslav Štumpf