The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir has put on display six Coptic-era artefacts at its entrance as the January Pieces of the Month in celebration of the Coptic Christmas on 7 January.

Sabah Abdel-Razak, director-general of the Egyptian Museum, explains that the artefacts were carefully selected from the Coptic Museum in Old Cairo and include two pieces of Coptic textiles and three wood carvings.

The first piece of textile has overlapping decorations coloured in beige and brown with a cross in the middle.

The second is part of a Coptic robe with plants and geometric decorations, coloured in black, dark beige and red. Its lower part ends with tassels coloured with blue and gray.

The icon with shutters

The first of the three wood carvings is decorated with images of an angel, a saint holding a book, and the Virgin Mary carrying the baby Jesus.

The second carving is gilded and decorated with the image of two saints; Irene, whose name means peace, and Foteine, meaning the bright one. An image of Christ is depicted in the middle, with the names of all three written in Greek above each image.

The third carving depicts the Virgin Mary carrying the baby Jesus and has a metal cover with ancient Russian writing.

Textile piece of robe

Gilded icon