(CE: 1594a-1608a)
METALWORK, COPTIC, objects made of metal in Egypt from the second to the thirteenth century. The study of Coptic metalwork presents serious problems. One is that metal objects recently removed from an environment that has sheltered them for centuries are subject to change and must be carefully preserved. Another is that scientific methods of metallographical analysis, which would give information on their origin, manufacture, and history, have rarely been applied to them. Until they are, scholars can attempt only a limited, empirical study based on general knowledge of ancient metalworking, on documentary evidence such as old texts as iconography, and on the objects themselves.
Often it is not known where metal objects regarded as Coptic were found. Many have been acquired through the art market. Aside from archaeological discoveries, an Egyptian origin is most often suggested for them by reason of their style. But Coptic forms cannot be clearly distinguished from late Roman, Syrian, Byzantine, and, ultimately, Muslim types. It is only those objects found in situ or those with an inscription in Coptic that can with confidence be described as Coptic, and these are few in number. Also, it is idle to try to establish a distinction between Christian and non-Christian objects except where the signs are clear. It is understood that Coptic art is Egyptian art produced during a period that witnessed the end of paganism, the spread of Christianity, and the beginning of the Muslim era. Thus, what was produced was not exclusively the work of Christian craftsmen; nor was it intended just for Christians.
Dating is equally problematic. In the present state of research, it would be premature to allot a date to each object studied. Publications often suggest dates but only too rarely offer adequate evidence for them. The means of dating are stratigraphy for archaeological finds, and comparative studies. Examination of the style of the motifs represented on metal objects or comparison of such motifs with their representation in other techniques may offer clues, but only under the presupposition that the dating of the works used for comparison is accurate.
Economic and Stylistic Aspects
In the Coptic period, Egyptians worked those metals that were traditionally known in the ancient world—gold, silver, copper, and bronze (an alloy of copper with tin or lead), which were most frequently used. Iron and lead were used more rarely.
Extraction. Deposits of metallic ore were located in the Eastern Desert, in Sinai, and in Nubia. Some metals, such as tin or silver, were found in small quantities in other materials or were imported. Gold and some copper and iron were present in a free state; the remainder had to be extracted from ores. The initial operations—crushing and casting of the ore, and shaping of the ingots—were carried out on site. The ingots were then hammered and tempered to yield more resistant products. The metalworkers used rudimentary metal tools and improvised crucibles and furnaces. In this technology they drew on an inheritance that went back to the times of the pharaohs.
Metalworking Techniques. In a second stage the metals were forged or cast to manufacture objects. They could all be hammered hot or cold. The sheets obtained were then cut, shaped by hammer on an anvil, and put together or hammered thin for plating; sometimes the metal was drawn into fine wire. Casting made it possible to create small objects with complex shapes. The traditional lost-wax process (using a wax-coated model, a clay or stone mold, and molten metal) was still in use. Steatite molds used to cast pendants and amulets have survived to the present day in the Egyptian Museum, Berlin, and the Brooklyn Museum. The unmolded metal object was then finished with a chisel and decorated. Decorative techniques included repoussé (hammered) work, engraving (incising) with a graving tool, perforations, inlaying, burning on a lathe, or joining by welding or riveting. Goldsmiths also did filigree work and granulation and set stones.
Organization of the Trade. Much is still unknown about the organization of the metalworking trade. Though workshops of the Early Christian period have been found in Europe and the Middle East, evidence from Egypt is lacking. The existence of such workshops, however, is indicated by marks from engravers' tools and by inscriptions. Alexandria was probably one of the great centers of the goldsmith's trade in the ancient world. Nevertheless, we must not suppose for this period any highly developed specialization either in metalworking technique or in the status of the craftsman. Some smiths worked on their own account, and traveling smiths in the countryside made objects of the lowliest type. But a workshop of considerable dimensions was necessary for some metalworking. Rich men or municipal or religious institutions could lease such shops to craftsmen. E. Wipszycka (1972, pp. 62, 103) mentions churches that had a metallurgical workshop. The founders of such shops were privileged, for the Theodosian code exempted them from personal imposts. Goldsmiths were also merchants and bankers of a kind, and they could employ many craftsmen.
Style. The style of an object is often bound up with its material but not always. Some metal flasks, for instance, might imitate glass or ceramic bottles. Conversely, potters sometimes copied metal containers. Style does not necessarily enable us to give the precise date of a piece. Only certain representation elements in metalwork can be compared to the same elements sculptured in stone or wood, which have been more extensively studied, to give us an indication of chronology. Style may also be affected by fashion and by foreign imports. Trade was brisk in the ancient world, and liturgical objects from Syria and goldwork from Byzantium were probably imported into Egypt. Thus many Coptic objects are comparable to Syrian and Byzantine metalwork. Conversely, objects in the Coptic style found in Nubia, North Africa, and Europe had perhaps been exported from Egypt or had been copied from Egyptian models or exports.
Articles for Liturgical and Everyday Use
Some metal objects such as cups and buckets were for everyday use. Others were for liturgical use, as attested by church inventories and representations of censers, lamps, and crosses in other forms of art. Sculpture, painting, and textiles also show us metalwork used as jewelry, musical instruments, and harness pieces. Almost all the liturgical and everyday objects mentioned below are made of bronze. Except for lamps and censers, whose functions are clear, they will be classified by shape rather than function.
Crosses. The cross is a frequent motif in metalwork, either for its symbolic value or as decoration. Some crosses were formerly attached to other objects as handles or appendages. Some were designed as pendants (see the section "Luxury Objects"). Others, as can be seen in iconography in other materials, were fixed on long handles or staves to be used in giving benedictions. Such benedictional crosses are small and show great variety of ornamentation. Generally their branches are of equal length; sometimes they have flared ends and decorative attachments such as balls or palmettes. The lower branch is extended by a handle, so the cross could be waved about, or by a socket for fixing to a shaft. The cross may be decoratively engraved with circles, inscriptions, the Virgin's face, as in an example in the Louvre Museum, Paris, or Christ's face, as in the Egyptian Museum, Berlin. The point of a silver cross found at Luxor now in the Coptic Museum, Cairo, must have been such a benedictional cross.
Similar crosses, but larger, were perhaps carried in procession. Their horizontal branches have hooks attached, from which hang small crosses and pearls. Examples are in the Metropolitan Museum, New York; and the Egyptian Museum, Berlin. There is also a fine silver votive cross in Berlin. Four holes have been made at the bottom of the transverse branches, but the pendants have disappeared. The front and back are decorated with inscriptions and incised faces: Christ, the Virgin, Saint John, Apa Shenute, Ama Mannou, two angels, and the archangel Gabriel.
Paterae. Paterae are shallow cups or saucers used by pagans for pouring libations on tombs and by Copts in the liturgy. Coptic paterae are bronze cups fitted with a handle. There is some doubt whether to classify the simpler ones of relatively deep proportions and a horizontal handle as paterae or just ordinary pots. Examples are in the Coptic Museum, Cairo, and the Egyptian Museum, Berlin. The decoration of the paterae was placed at the base, around the cup, and on the handle. One of them, in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Washington, D.C., shows a raised foot, incised motifs, and an invocation for purification engraved on the handle. The rim may be emphasized by a perforated horizontal festoon, or it may be surrounded by pearls or inscribed. The handle may be decorated by a geometrical or figural motif such as the body of an animal (as in examples in the Benaki Museum, Athens; the Coptic Museum, Cairo; and the Louvre) or a nude woman with crossed legs and raised arms, showing a palm and a crown (as on a fragment from the Benaki Museum), or just a crown containing a cross (as in the Coptic Museum, Cairo; and the Louvre). The two dolphins surrounding the crown suggest a pagan origin from the Aphrodite cycle for this Christianized motif.
Lighting Equipment. Coptic lighting equipment, like that of other peoples in the ancient world, included a variety of oil lamps, candelabra, and chandeliers.
Bronze lamps consist of a reservoir for the oil; a mouth, which may be provided with a lid, for receiving the oil; and one or more spouts for the wick. Shapes vary, depending on how the lamps are to be held or arranged: handle, flat bottom, feet, or a hole for slipping it on to a candelabrum, rings for hanging it on chains, or a hook ending in a duck's head, such as an example in the Egyptian Museum, Turin. Some lamps, for example, in the Louvre and the Egyptian Museum, Berlin, have a rectangular body with one rounded side carrying the handle. On the opposite side, two channels extend for the wicks. These box-shaped lamps are closed by a lid with hinges and rest on four feet. The most common lamps are like those made of terra-cotta. They have a flat bottom, and a small lid can close the supply opening. Some examples are more original and include lamps in the shape of a shoe, ball-shaped lamps with two or three spouts, or lamps with a foot and two spouts symmetrically placed. The more elaborate lamps are distinguished by their decoration.
Some lamps have a reflector, a movable leaf connected by a hinge to the rear of the lamp, which increases the light. It is decoratively worked with a leaf, shell, or rosette with perforation. This type of lamp was often placed on a candelabrum.
Lamps decorated with a cross have the general appearance of lamps with a reflector. Between the handle and the filler hole there rises a cross either set in a crown or with widening branches that curve at the ends. This decoration may indicate a liturgical use.
Lamps with scrolled handles are fitted with a lid, have one or two slender spouts, and have a foot that fits, for the most part, on a candelabrum. The handle shows an elegant scroll development, reminiscent of foliated scrolls and sometimes with leaves. Other motifs may be intermingled with them, such as crosses, birds, or a small figurine like the Thorn Extractor in the Egyptian Museum, Turin, which is hellenistic in inspiration.
Some lamps represent human figures. The body of a lamp in the Egyptian Museum, Berlin, consists of a person seated with outstretched legs. Other lamps have a face as a decoration, either on the reservoir section or at the reflector or handle level. Finally, a lamp of great originality in Berlin resembles a boat holding five sailors and a dog.
Other lamps have animal decoration. The handle may be worked into the shape of a horse's or griffin's head. Lamps shaped like animals are more numerous; and among them we may distinguish beasts, birds, and dolphins.
Some rare samples represent an animal poised on its paws, for example, camels in the Louvre and the Coptic Museum, Cairo, or the two-headed bull and the lion in the Egyptian Museum, Berlin; or upside down with its paws tied together, such as gazelles in the Egyptian Museum, Turin, and in the Louvre. Birds were a great inspiration for Coptic bronze workers. We can distinguish a cock in the Egyptian Museum, Berlin, and the Archaeological Museum, Florence, a duck in the Egyptian Museum, Turin, and numerous doves and peacocks. The body constitutes the oil reservoir, with the lid on the back; the head, sometimes turned backward, forms the handle. The spout of the lamp has its opening in the tail, which may be divided. This tail rests on the bird's feet, but generally this type of lamp could be hung by means of chains, and some also could be fitted on a candelabrum.
The dolphin, which is very popular in Coptic art, lent its shape to some lamps. Some are very rounded; one in the Louvre is straddled by a putto (cupid). Others, more elongated, may or may not rest on a support. The head, sometimes surmounted by a cross, is in the middle of the lamp, and from its open mouth either one or two spouts emerge. The tail is raised and widens out, like a flower, round a supply orifice. Sometimes such a lamp is so tapered and the dolphin so stylized that it is no longer recognizable.
Candelabra are many-branched stands that hold lamps or candles. Stability is ensured by a base consisting of three feet, generally executed in the form of feline paws or even like three lionesses rampant, as on a candelabrum in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection. The three feet are sometimes covered by a light drapery form. Above rises a shaft designed as a little column, a baluster, or a cross. It is surmounted by a disk and the point on which the gallery light was fixed. On a notable example in the Nelson-Atkins Gallery of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, the shaft is a figurine of Aphrodite at her toilet, and the feet are sea centaurs straddled by Nereids. According to M. C. Ross (1942), this unique object would have been a wedding gift.
There are also simple candlesticks holding one candle. They have a splayed foot and are decorated with moldings.
Even a lamp with several spouts provided only relatively low lighting. To illuminate large areas such as churches, multiple lighting sources were a necessity. A chandelier (polycandelon), a hanging lighting fixture with several lights, gave a more intense illumination. Chandeliers occur in two forms. The first is a perforated bronze disk, with sockets around the circumference to take small bowls or cups filled with oil. The one in the Rhenish State Museum, Trier, still has two glass cups. It is decorated with crosses, one of which has a representation of Christ, the Virgin, and Saint John. The cross is a frequent decoration for these chandeliers. It can be set in a circle or repeated on a radiating wrought metal shape.
A second type of chandelier is a cylinder, to which are attached by hinges various items, often dolphins, carrying small cups for oil. The one in the Louvre shows a perforated inscription. Two complete examples are preserved in the Coptic Museum, Cairo, and in the Egyptian Museum, Berlin.
Cruets are small hemispherical cups fitted with a flat handle and a narrow spout, probably used for pouring oil into lamps. The handle, which is elegantly carved, is sometimes decorated. Examples in the Egyptian Museum, Berlin, and the British Museum, London, have a motif of guinea fowl face-to-face on either side of the tree of life. Such oil-pourers were produced in Islamic areas as far away as Iran.
The Louvre has preserved a snuffer, something that looks like a pair of scissors that must have been used for snuffing candles.
Censers. Censers, or incense burners, were important liturgical objects. Most were made of bronze, but two valuable examples of silver, found at Luxor, are in the Coptic Museum, Cairo. Swung with the help of hand-held chains or a handle, they may be divided into three groups according to shape: hollow-dish censers, box censers, and censers with a handle. However, the presence or absence of a lid, the way of holding or suspending the censer, and the extraordinary decorative variety make each one almost unique.
Hollow-dish censers are derived from the open dish or covered chalice. Three rings on the edge of the dish make it possible to hang the censer on chains linked by a holding ring. But the censer can also rest on a base or on three feet similar to those of candelabra, as, for example, in the Coptic Museum, Cairo. Three-footed censers have the dish in the shape of a hemisphere, as in examples from Saqqara (Quibell, 1912) or, more frequently, a polygon. An example of this type in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, has a cross above the terminal ring. The most unusual example, in a private collection, consists of a baluster shaft between the three feet and the dish. It is decorated by a perforated festoon with birds (Pagan and Christian Egypt, 1941).
Hollow-dish censers without a lid have bowl-shaped bellies decorated with moldings, flutings, a perforated geometrical motif, for example, one found at Kellia in 1982, or the features of the four apocalyptic figures on an example in the Louvre. Here we must remember the group of so-called Syrian censers, several of which were discovered in Egypt and which would be imports or local copies of a Middle Eastern type. They are decorated with scenes from the life of Christ in relief (Leroy, 1976, pp. 381-90).
Some hollow-dish censers with a lid are shaped like a chalice, the belly of which is a hemisphere, mounted on a slender foot. A hemispherical lid connected by a hinge makes the chalice a complete sphere. It is perforated and surmounted by a cross, as in examples from Madinat Habu (Hölscher, 1954), the Coptic Museum, Cairo, and the Egyptian Museum, Berlin, or by a baluster, as in a silver censer from Luxor in the Coptic Museum. Masks perforated at eye and mouth levels are engraved on the lid of another silver example in the Louvre. For some lidded censers it is the belly that has been shaped into a human face. Examples are found in the Louvre, with lids that also show faces, and in the Walters Art Gallery and the Egyptian Museum, Berlin. These last are more squat and have a lid like a cap. Another example in Berlin is reminiscent of a pine cone set on a perforated foot.
Box censers may be cylindrical, rectangular, or polygonal in shape and are set on several feet. Generally such censers have little in the way of decoration, except for two examples in the Egyptian Museum, Berlin. One shows a Bacchic scene and the other, in silver, has animals in relief. They have lost their lids. In other box censers it is the lid that gives them distinction, since it is perforated and linked to the box by a hinge and a fastener or a groove. To this is sometimes added an arrangement for hanging the censer. One example in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection is somewhat reminiscent of a chapel. The most intriguing type, of which eight examples are known, is surmounted by an animal group in relief such as a lioness bringing down a boar. M. C. Ross sees in this a homogeneous group manufactured in the Thebaid and dating from the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century, because of the hard sculptural style (1942, pp. 10-12).
Some censers do not really come into the category of boxes but are considered part of the above series because of their animal
design, for example, a fish censer at the Walters Art Gallery, and horses on censers in the Egyptian Museum, Turin, and the State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad.
Censers with a handle have a slightly rounded dish camouflaged by a cylindrical framework, from which emerges a handle or a ferrule intended to receive a handle. These censers were meant to be held, not swung. The cylindrical part may be perforated in the design of a grid, foliations, or animals. It rests on three feet that represent feline paws, hares, or aediculae (small shrines). These censers have a dome-shaped lid attached by a hinge and sometimes also a fastener. Perforated with an elegant foliated trellis, the lid is crowned by a decorative grip in the shape of a baluster, aedicula, or animal, such as an eagle holding a serpent in its beak on an example in the Louvre. This type of censer had an influence on Muslim productions (Aga-Oglu, 1945, pp. 28-45).
Braziers. It is not easy to classify as censers certain bronze objects that are perforated and are of uncertain purpose but that may well have been related to some kind of combustion. These are, for instance, cups in the Louvre that are almost flat-bottomed and have a highly pierced belly with foliation or letters. One of them has the style of a dish-shaped censer with hanging rings. A support for a censer, the cut-out pattern of which constitutes a series of monograms, is preserved in the Egyptian Museum, Berlin.
Cups, Basins, Cauldrons, and Buckets. Numerous containers may have been used as cult objects or braziers, and some of their shapes are found in censers. But failing proof of their function, it is better to classify them by shape along with secular utensils.
Cups may be, on the one hand, simple bronze bowls without any decoration, such as those found at Madinat Habu (Hölscher, 1954); the biggest of them are shallow bowls, or basins. On the other hand, cups may be more elaborate in form or decoration. The rim may be flared, flat, or bounded by a carina (ridge). The bowl may be decorated with simple motifs, in relief, incised, or even inlaid with silver, and it may rest on one or more feet. One elegant series has feet and two articulated handles on the rim, which can be festooned. These cups are sometimes adorned with gadroons, as are examples in the Coptic Museum, at Cairo; the Egyptian Museum, Berlin; and the Louvre. Another form has a round belly resting on three feet, a cylindrical neck, and a flat rim. The finest example of this type is in a private collection (Pagan and Christian Egypt 1941, no. 82). An inscription and crosses inlaid with silver show that it was a liturgical object. Another, with a chain, was found at Tud in 1980. One wonders if it should be regarded as a censer. A cup in the Coptic Museum, Cairo, has a lid pierced by a hole and decorated with animals in high relief.
Small cylindrical dishes fitted with a pouring spout are cruets perhaps intended for filling lamps with oil.
Wider cylindrical containers, with or without a foot, may be regarded as cauldrons. One of them, decorated with figures in relief under archways, is in the Coptic Museum, Cairo.
Similar to the cauldrons, but a little higher than they are wide, are buckets, which have a flared or slightly convex belly. Their movable handle is attached to two rings at the top. One bucket in the Coptic Museum, Cairo, is accompanied by a tripod support. More elegant examples are in the form of a bowl in Cairo or of a situla (bucket) in the Louvre. Finally, M.C. Ross draws attention to two bucket censers, the bellies of which are worked in the form of a bust, perhaps of Dionysus. Because of their Roman derivation, he places them at the very start of the Coptic period (1970, p. 34).
Goblets, Flasks, and Jugs. Goblets with a cylindrical body, fitted with a vertical handle and with small feet, resemble tankards. A brief inscription appears on the one in the Louvre, while the handles of two in the Coptic Museum, Cairo, have a feline shape.
Felines are also found on two flasks (narrow-necked containers) preserved in the Louvre. One is in the shape of an amphora (two-handled vase); the second has only one handle and rests on a triangular support. Some flasks of the same kind in the Louvre and the Egyptian Museum, Berlin, lack a handle and have a perforated support. These bronze flasks can be compared with the wooden phials (small bottles) studied by M. H. Rutschowscaya (1976, pp. 1-5).
Other bronze flasks, which may be called phials or bottles depending on their size, exhibit great diversity. Two types stand out. One type has a rounded belly or ribs set on a small base and narrows to a neck that ends in a wider, molded rim. Examples are in the Coptic Museum, Cairo, and the Louvre or were found at Saqqara (Quibell, 1912) or Madinat Habu (Hölscher, 1954). A jug in the British Museum has the same shape but with a turned handle decorated with a horse's head. The second type of flask has a cylindrical belly that rests on several feet and is laden with decorations in relief. The decorations may be geometrical, or they may represent plants or figures under archways, like the dancers with crotala (castanets) or the musicians on flasks in the Coptic Museum, Cairo. The neck is between two scalloped crowns. Two leaden eulogy AMPULLAE (small, two-handled flasks) are in the Coptic Museum, Cairo; one is an effigy of Saint Menas, of a type generally made of terra-cotta; the other represents Saint Theodorus.
There are two jugs, or pitchers, in the Egyptian Museum, Berlin, each equipped with a hinged lid. One is elongated like an ewer; the other has a rounded belly that displays a human face.
Ladles and Spoons. The simpulum (small ladle) was used in the Greco-Roman period in either a liturgical or secular context and continued to be used by the Copts. It consists of a small cup at the end of a long, vertical handle, which is often crooked so that it can be hung from the top of the container from which it dips liquid. Several simpula have been found in excavations at Idfu in 1938, Madinat Habu (Hölscher, 1954), and Tud in 1981. An example in the Coptic Museum, Cairo, has a cylindrical cup and is ornamented with foliated reliefs and with rearing horses where the broken wrought metal handle begins.
Some ladles have handles worked in the shape of a duck's head, a motif inherited from the pharaonic period but also found in Roman silverware. A ladle in the Museum of Art and History, Fribourg, Switzerland, has a duck incised on part of the handle, which has been wrought as a medallion. On some ladles the handle is made of two sliding parts that allow it to be extended.
A curious serving implement in the Coptic Museum, Cairo, has a bowl with a spout worked in the shape of a camel's head and a horizontal handle.
Alongside wooden or bone spoons, there are more luxurious ones made of bronze. A shell spoon-bowl is associated with an iron handle in an example in the Coptic Museum, Cairo.
Weights and Balances. The Copts used two types of instruments for weighing. The first type, the balance scale in use since pharaonic times, consisted of a haft, or fulcrum, connected by a bolt to a beam from which hung two pans. When the object to be weighed in one pan and the weight in the other were in equilibrium, a pointer on the beam aligned with the haft. This extremely precise instrument was designed to weigh small quantities and must have been used by goldsmiths. It was stored with the weights in a compartmented wooden box (Rutschowscaya 1979, pp. 1-5). Some examples have been preserved at University College, London, and in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. Another example, without a box, is in the Coptic Museum, Cairo.
The second type, the steelyard scale, or Roman balance, was introduced into Egypt by the Romans and is still in use for weighing gross amounts. It consists of a bar or rod of two unequal portions. The quantity to be weighed is hung, in a pan or by itself, from the shorter portion. Three hooks allow the rod to be held in three positions. The longer portion is triangular in cross-section and marked on each face with a scale corresponding to the hanging position. A hanging counterweight slides along the triangular section until the rod is level. The mark where it stops indicates the weight. The metal counterweights are spheres, cubes, or polygons. They are engraved and sometimes inlaid with silver with marks and motifs such as the cross, which may be in a crown or a stylized chapel, or sacred personages. Examples are in the Coptic Museum, Cairo, the Egyptian Museum, Berlin, the British Museum, and the Dumbarton Oaks Collection. A whole balance has been preserved at University College, and another is in a private collection (Engelbach, 1919, p. 46).
Keys. Keys of iron or bronze are preserved in large numbers in the Coptic Museum, Cairo, and the Egyptian Museum, Berlin. A complete set was found at Madinat Habu (Hölscher, 1954). Their shapes are extremely diverse. The shaft may be curved, and at the opposite extremity from the steps there is a ring. The finest examples are decorated with capitals and with animal figures and are inlaid with silver, as, for example, are keys of the convents of Suhaj in the Coptic Museum, Cairo.
Musical Instruments. Judging from numerous iconographical evidence, one of the chief Coptic instruments was the crotala, or castanets, which consisted of two small bronze cymbals fixed between the limbs of a wooden grip, as in the Museum of Art and History, Fribourg, Switzerland, or a bronze grip, as in the Coptic Museum, Cairo, which also has little bells. Various disks have been found, singly or in pairs. Some were part of crotala, and others were small cymbals played horizontally or like castanets (Hickman, 1949, pp. 517 ff.).
Small bronze bells were used more as a signal for gathering people together than as a musical instrument. For example, they were used in monasteries or churches; the stylized representation of a chapel on a bell in the Louvre seems to indicate its religious purpose. Hand bells or small round bells might embellish certain objects, such as the crotala referred to above, or pieces of harness. They also served to identify cattle. (See MUSIC, MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.)
Miscellaneous Objects. Lance tips and arrowheads were made of metal, but it is hard to distinguish those in museums dating from the Coptic period unless they come from excavations such as Idfu and Madinat Habu (Hölscher, 1954).
Metal was used for harnesses, such as one found in the ruins of Madinat Habu (Hölscher, 1954). M. C. Ross calls attention to certain decorative parts adorned with the cross (1970, p. 37).
Utensils and instruments such as chisels, knives, hooks, needles, nails, and razors are undecorated functional objects of bronze or iron. Sometimes they are gathered together on a ring, for example, the tongs and needles from Idfu in the Museum of Art and History, Fribourg. An ivory case preserved in the Louvre contains some scalpels that could have belonged to an eye surgeon.
Luxury Objects
Plated Boxes. Some objects may be embellished with decorative metal plates to make them more precious. Thus some boxes were adorned with small plates surrounding the lock or with plate panels covering all their surfaces or simply one of them. The decoration is then incised, as in a weights box in the Louvre, or wrought in repoussé, as on boxes in the Coptic Museum, Cairo, and the Egyptian Museum, Berlin. The subjects are often drawn from pagan mythology: the hunt, centaurs, Gorgon masks, figures from the Aphrodite cycle, or the Isis cycle. A perforated plating on one box in Berlin shows animals in frames, set out in such a way as to form a cross inscribed in a circle.
Jewelry. Two kinds of jewelry have been found in Coptic Egypt. One kind is very luxurious in Byzantine fashion, such as the sumptuous jewelry made of gold and precious stones in the treasure of Antinoë (Dennison and Morey, 1918). The other kind is extremely simple, fashioned out of less splendid materials, clearly because of the poverty of Egypt and the precepts of austerity counseled by the clergy.
Bracelets show varied decorations, from the simplest, made of bronze or iron, to the most elaborate of gold, silver, or precious stones. Where the bracelet is an open circle, its extremities are either plain or decorated with flowers or animals' heads. The serpent shape is an inheritance from Greek or Roman jewelry. The closed-circle bracelet often shows a series of medallions with incised decorations, such as inscriptions, geometrical motifs, or figures of saints. The most sophisticated have a fastening and are embellished with torsades (twisted cords), granulation, medallions, and additional insertions.
Earrings are of gold, silver, or bronze, and are sometimes decorated with pearls and semiprecious stones. The decorative element is fixed on the open ring that goes through the lobe of the ear. It is composed of a polyhedral bead of perforated metal, or a crescent, or a disk with networks of scrolls, sometimes delineating the cross. The decorative element may also be a pendant consisting of a single drop, or a row of beads and drops, sometimes in three tiers.
Two iron mirrors in the Egyptian Museum, Berlin, consist of a disk, decorated with peacocks facing each other on a floral background, and a worked handle. In University College are a simple mirror of tinned copper stored in a wooden case and a small bronze mirror decorated with interlaced designs and fitted with a small handle. A replica is in the Egyptian Museum, Berlin. The Louvre has a genuine glass mirror set in a bronze frame fitted with a ring.
Some necklaces consist of a circle of bronze or iron, which may be augmented by pendeloques (pear-shaped pendant jewels) and medallions. A cross is attached to the necklace of Serapion found at Antinoë and preserved in the Louvre. Other necklaces are made of gold chains with decorative motifs. The chains are derived from Greco-Roman jewelry. They are embellished with perforated disks, beads, representational elements, such as ducks in the Walters Art Gallery, or pendants, such as a medallion of the Annunciation from Antinoë and a magnificent gold and lapis lazuli shell containing a figure of Aphrodite in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection.
Pendants and amulets have been found in isolation, but they may have been part of jewelry. The most numerous are in the form of a cross. Small crosses were also hung on the arms of the large votive crosses. Those that bear representations in relief of Christ, the Virgin, and archangels are pendants or encolpia ("reliquary crosses").
A Christian iconography can also be seen on medals and amulets made of bronze or lead: the life of Christ, angels, and saints on horseback. Inscriptions identify the figure or the owner of the object.
Some bronze pins were perhaps used in hair dressing. As far as we know, no diadems have been found in Egypt despite the numerous representations that testify to their existence. Brooches, fibulae, and belt buckles are in the University College and the British Museum.
Besides some simple rings, open or closed, there are numerous seal rings that are similar to amulets in their iconography or inscriptions. They are generally made of bronze. Sometimes the seals are not mounted in rings. Some were used for stamping the eucharistic bread.
Missoria. Missoria are richly decorated dishes used as luxury table service at banquets since Roman times. Only a few examples come from Egypt. The fragmentary bronze dish in the Coptic Museum, Cairo, is decorated with episodes from the life of Achilles. Two others of gilded silver in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection show two persons in a medallion surrounded by palmettes, perhaps the Hippolytus cycle. Three dishes from the Benaki Museum were obtained in Egypt and show mythological and Nile scenes. The luxurious material and style of these missoria have nothing Coptic about them. They could have been manufactured in Egypt or imported from Constantinople. In the silver treasure found at Luxor and now in the Coptic Museum, Cairo, are three rectangular trays, which might also be regarded as missoria. They are decorated with crosses or chi-rho monograms and with religious dedications.
Figurines. Full-size Coptic metal statuary is almost nonexistent. Among the numerous bronze figurines, real statuettes are rare, except for some animals in the Egyptian Museum, Berlin. The others were, or still are, part of the decoration for other objects such as paterae (saucers), vases, lamps, and censers. There is an important group of small animals and birds, some of which may have been amulets. Some of the animals are decorations for handles or spouts. Among persons represented, dancers and musicians are frequent, for example, on the handles of paterae and figurines in the Egyptian Museum, Berlin. An Aphrodite, perhaps at her toilet, constitutes the foot of a candelabrum (see above). The galloping soldiers in the Charles Ratton Collection in Paris and the Egyptian Museum, Turin, are probably saints on horseback, as suggested by a cross on top of the shaft held by the soldier in Turin.
DOMINIQUE BENAZETH
