“Coptic Art in the Byzantine World” and Beyond

Until fairly recently, Egyptian Christian visual culture has been considered peripheral and substandard, made by Christians called Copts. Remembering that Egypt was one of the wealthiest provinces in the Empire, and examining racial and nationalist agendas with a critical eye, it is clear that Egypt played a major role in the complex process that was cultural production, circulation and reinterpretation in the empire and beyond. “Coptic” cannot correctly be used for the many types of Christians in Egypt until after the Arab conquest in 641/642 CE, and even then, it took at least two centuries or more for the Christians of Egypt to coalesce into a single doctrinally-defined group (Miaphysite) and to use Arabic as their native tongue. The range of visual and material culture produced in Egypt in late antiquity and the medieval period makes using the label “Coptic” for it difficult. A broadly similar trajectory for one style of wall painting continued from late antiquity through the early fourteenth century (in the surviving record), and it can comfortably be described as Coptic. But how, then, should scholars label art made by Copts in different styles? Just one example is the most popular art of the early thirteenth century, used by Muslims, Christians, and Jews, in Egypt, the Levant and modern-day Iraq, etc., and created in an environment which had its center in Baghdad? These questions have no easy answers, but promise to make for an exciting discussion.