Tag Archives: Egypt

St. Mary’s Coptic Orthodox Church

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Earlier this month, entirely by chance, I saw that St. Mary’s Coptic Orthodox Church in Palatine was about to hold its annual Egypt Fest. I noticed, besides offering the kinds of things you’d find at a local festival, such as food and children’s rides, the event also offered the opportunity to visit the church building. Instantly I knew I wanted to attend. I didn’t remember ever visiting a Coptic church before. So I went that Saturday afternoon.

The church is in a prosperous neighborhood not far from a major highway that I drive often, and I knew it well, in the sense that St. Mary and the Christ Child in their glory are visible from the highway. But also as a flyby. Visiting in person, I got a better look.

They are featured on the back wall. Facing east, if my geographic awareness is correct.

The church was indeed open. An interior detail.

Stained glass.

Pews and an iconostasis. Unusual, but I’ve seen it before. Priests and a few laymen were active in the sanctuary that afternoon. The prayers, which I took to be partly in Coptic, had a hypnotic quality. Text of the prayers scrolled by in English, Coptic (I assume) and Arabic.

That kept me in the pews a while, as I tried to remember what I learned, many years ago, about what had caused the rupture between Constantinople and Alexandria in the 5th century. During the Council of Chalcedon. That much I remembered. The nub of the quarrel? I had to look that up later.

The nature of the Son. The sort of argument that inspired riots, once upon a time. Now I imagine even most lifelong parishioners of whichever side would shrug at the difference. The Copts have more immediate concerns anyway, such as ongoing persecution in Egypt itself. We have our issues in North America, but at least Copts can live in peace here, and maintain an elegant church in a prosperous neighborhood.

The Fabyan Mummy

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The Internet might be more vast a wasteland than the worried Newton Minow could ever imagine, but its oases of information – actual information, to judge by internal consistencies, linkable references and good writing – continue to amaze. For example, Mummies.com, which has lists of Egyptian mummies in the United States.

I went looking for such a site because of a recent encounter with a mummy. Or rather, a “mummy,” but we’ll get to that later.

This figure is on display at the Fabyan Villa, which is part of the Fabyan Forest Preserve on the west bank of the Fox River, in Geneva, Illinois. We visited a few weeks ago. Both the villa and the “mummy” are legacies of George Fabyan (d. 1936), who has been fated to go down in history – in a small way, but more than most people – as a wealthy eccentric. One of his eccentricities, like William Randolph Hearst writ small, was collecting eccentric artifacts.

A sign near the mummy-shaped artifact says that modern examination has proven it to be a fake. Whether George Fabyan knew this or not is an open question.

Remarkable thought, that there was once a market for mummies so brisk that counterfeiters made bank. It wasn’t called Egyptomania for nothing.

An anecdote from Mummies.com about a real mummy (Harwa) in possession of the Field Museum, which has 33 mummies, tells quite the tale:

Harwa’s adventurous afterlife is one example of how things have changed. In 1939, he became the first mummified person to fly on an airplane, and he was taken to a Broadway show upon his arrival in New York City. On display at the New York World’s Fair for two years, he then returned to the Field Museum after getting lost in the luggage and being sent to San Francisco.

There’s streaming service comedy gold in that, say 10 episodes: the misadventures of the promoter hired in 1939 to take care of the mummy, and his oddball assistant, who also happens to be a bombshell of a woman. High jinx ensue. The mummy is misplaced, more than once. There are various shenanigans on the airplane, and on Broadway. A rival promoter tries to steal the mummy. Weird things happen at the World’s Fair. Nothing supernatural, though one or another of the characters might worry about the Curse of Harwa — which a publicist make up. Maybe even a guest appearance by Col. Fabyan, who wants to buy the mummy. Of course, the actual Fabyan was already dead by then, but this is TV we’re talking about. You know, the outclassed wasteland.

Egyptian 25-Piastre Note

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Something I didn’t know until yesterday, but might have guessed: the modern Egyptian pound, which is every bit as fiat-y as any other currency now, owes its origin to the Maria Theresa thaler, a good example of sound money if there ever was one. The history of money, especially currency, continues to fascinate. People will miss it if it all ever becomes nothing but notions on some server farm.

I don’t have a one-pound Egyptian banknote. I do have a 25-piastre note, the smallest paper denomination that the Central Bank of Egypt issues, acquired a few years ago with a number of other world banknotes for a small sum.

These days, 1 Egyptian pound = about 6.3 U.S. cents, so my quarter-pound note is theoretically worth about 1.5 cents. No collector value, I’m sure. The note has been issued since the 1980s, and I’ll bet there are a lot of them.
I’m not actually sure that’s the obverse, though Wiki says it is. I suppose the Arabic text determines that; the Roman text is on the other side. In any case, this side depicts the Sayeda Aisha Mosque in Cairo.

The Egyptian Coat of Arms is on the other side.
Not just any eagle, either: the Eagle of Saladin. The 12th-century Sultan of Egypt and warrior against the Crusader states.

Interesting choice of crops to flank the Eagle of Saladin. Wheat, of course; Egypt was the breadbasket of ancient Rome, one reason a prefect ruled the province directly on behalf of the Emperor, rather than a governor appointed by the Senate. Also, cotton. Certainly — Egyptian cotton, known the world over.

Corn? As in, maize? That’s what it looks like. The FAO tells me that in Egypt, “Wheat is the major winter cereal grain crop and the third major crop in terms of area planted… Maize is the second most important crop… but at least 50 percent of its production is used for livestock and poultry feed.”

How about that. Another consequence of the Columbian exchange echoing down the centuries.

Centuries Come, Centuries Go

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Last week I took note of some of the monumental items at the Oriental Institute Museum, but of course the museum is home to a lot more artifacts, and most of them were more modest in size. But no less interesting for it. Such as some dice from Roman Egypt.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERACool. Especially since anyone alive now, two millennia after they were made, could look at them and know exactly what they’re for, even if the games of chance aren’t quite the same. Even cooler is that dice were ancient even then, so much so that their origin is obscure.

Also on display were some knucklebones, an alternative to dice that are probably just as old, if not older (and the ancestor of modern playing jacks?). According the museum, “knucklebones of sheep or oxen were used to determine the number of moves on game boards. The four sides of each bone are distinctive, and each was assigned a specific number. They were normally thrown in pairs, allowing for ten possible combinations.”

The museum also sported plenty of figurines.

Eygptian figurines 1Still charming after all these centuries. Thought to come from a tomb of a courtier named Nykauinpu at Giza, made of limestone and dating from the Old Kingdom, Dynasty 5 of the 25th century BC. So by the time of Julius Caesar, this statue was already older than anything from the time of Julius Caesar is now. Even on a human scale (not to mention geological or cosmological), time’s mind-boggling.

On a sign describing another man-and-woman set of Egyptian figurines, I noted these lines, referring to the way the woman was dressed (emphasis added): “This style of dress was popular for the entire 3,000 years of pharaonic history.” I’ll say one thing about the ancient Egyptians — they found something they liked and stuck with it.

Born in Babylonia, Moved to Chicago

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The Oriental Institute Museum in Hyde Park, Chicago, houses an embarrassment of riches, a surfeit of treasures, and an abundance of artifacts from times lost to time. Not bad for an organization that isn’t even a century old. The institute’s web site puts it succinctly: “The Oriental Institute is a research organization and museum devoted to the study of the ancient Near East. Founded in 1919 by James Henry Breasted, the Institute, a part of the University of Chicago, is an internationally recognized pioneer in the archaeology, philology, and history of early Near Eastern civilizations.”

Besides the obviously high quality of the collection, which I’m only partly able to appreciate – it’s hard for me to sort out of who was who and when was when in the ancient Near East, except for places that were eventually part of the Roman Empire — I like the museum for two other reasons. First, it’s never been crowded in all the times I’ve been there since the 1980s. Second, it doesn’t pander to visitors with a lot of whiz-bang, touch-it-wow gimmicks. It’s got stuff, and signs describing that stuff. An old-fashioned, static approach to museum organization, for sure. If you go to the Oriental Institute Museum, you’ve got to be prepared to look at things and read about them.

But who’s so jaded that he wouldn’t be impressed by this?

Oriental Institute-2Or this?

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOr this?

How'd You Get So Funky?The first item is a colossal bull head from the Hundred-Column Hall of Persepolis, dating from the reigns of Xerxes and Artaxerxes I in the fifth century BC (note: the signs in the museum use BC, not BCE). The horns are lost, which makes me suspect they were made of something really valuable, looted long ago.

Next is a human-headed winged bull — a lamassu — which once was at the entrance to the throne room of Assyrian King Sargon II . Weighs 40 tons. I wouldn’t want to get on his bad side.

Finally, a 17-foot-plus statue of Tutankhamun. Well, sort of. The institute says: “The statue is inscribed for Horemheb whose name was recut over that of King Aye. The statue is assigned to the reign of Tutankhamun on stylistic grounds, for it resembles other representations of that king.” Sure, but it’ll always be King Tut to me.