19. Fragments of Coptic wall hanging; arched structure with Coptic 

 text, ankh signs and crosses in field; wool on linen, 5th-6th cents, ad 



71863 



Copts prefigured the cross, and not just the cross, but 

 the cross triumphant, the cross that gives life. Thus, 

 this hieroglyph survives in Christian iconography as 

 the crux ansata. The Copts used it interchangeably 

 with the more familiar cross (see fig. 19). The utiliza- 

 30 tion of Isis, mother of Horus, to develop the iconogra- 



phy of Mary, mother of Christ, helps to explain the 

 several cults of the Black Madonna found in European 

 locales. It was the Romans who first enunciated a racial 

 distinction for the Egyptians. On the average, because 

 the Egyptians were darker than Romans, they were 

 classed as "blacks." Thus, Isis, an Egyptian goddess par 

 excellence, could be viewed as "Black" Isis. As Europe 

 was Christianized, the utilization of the iconography of 

 Isis, mother of Horus, for the iconography of Mary, 

 mother of Christ, included Isis' skin complexion and 

 all. So ended the long pharaonic tradition of Isis and 

 Osiris and the belief in resurrection and life after death. 

 Not surprisingly, then, viewing some of these Egyptian 

 traditions nudges deeply held concepts of Museum visi- 

 tors coming from a Christian tradition. FM 



Sources and Suggested Readings 



Materials listed here are available 

 in the Field Museum Library or at the Oriental Institute 



Apuleius, The Golden Ass. Translated by Robert Graves. New 

 York: Noonday Press, 1951. 



Bowman, Alan K. Egypt after the Pharaohs. Los Angeles: Univer- 

 sity of California Press, 1965. 



Du Bourget, Pierre M. The Art of the Copts. Translated by Cyril 

 Hay-Shaw. New York: Crown Books, 1971. 



Emery, Walter B. Archaic Egypt. Baltimore; Penguin Books, 1961. 



Faulkner, Raymond O. The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Edited by 

 Carol Andrews. London; British Museum Publications, 1985. 



Freemantle, Anne, ed. A Treasury of Early Christianity. New York: 

 Mentor Books, 1960. 



Gardiner, Alan H. and Kurt Sethe. Egyptian Letters to the Dead. 

 London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1928. 



Griffiths, John Gwyn. "Triune Conceptions of Deity in Ancient 

 Egypt" Zeitschrift fiir Agyptische Sprache 100, 1973. 



Harris, James E. and Kent R. Weeks. X-Raying the Pharaohs. New 

 York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973. 



Kitchen, Kenneth A. Pharaoh Triumphant. Mississauga: Benben 

 Publications, 1982. 



Lauer, Jean Philippe. Saqqara. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 

 1976. 



Lewis, Naphtali. Life in Egypt under Rovnan Ruk. Oxford: 

 Clarendon Press, 1983. 



Lichtheim, Miriam. Ancient Egyptian Literature (3 vols.). 



Eierkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California 

 Press, 1973, 1976, 1980. 



Morenz, Siegfried. Egyptian Religion. Translated by Ann E. Keep. 

 Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976. 



Moussa, Ahmed and Hartwig Altenmiiller The Tomb ofNefer ami 

 Kahay. Archaologische Veroffentlichungen des Deutschen 

 Archaologisches Instituts, Abteilung Kairo, no. 5. Mainz am 

 Rhein: Verlag Phillip von Zabem, 1971. 



Petrie, William M. F. The Royal Tombs of the Earliest Dynasties, 

 Part II. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner, and Co. 1901. 



Rittner, Robert. "Egyptians in Ireland: A Question of Coptic Per- 

 egrinations," Rice University Studies 62, no. 2 (Spring, 1976). 



Wente, Edward F. "A Ghost Story," in The Literature o/ Ancient 

 Egypt. Edited by William Kelly Simpson. New Haven and Lon- 

 don: Yale University Press, 1973. 



