Julian Barnett
Egypt, Part 1: Pharaonic and Coptic Cairo
Julian Barnett - Egypt, Part 1: Pharaonic and Coptic Cairo
- Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are in the world and lovely to see you all again. The last time we were together was the 3rd of September. And I was just thinking today, how quickly and how much things change. Here in the UK, if you’re living in the UK, and maybe you’re not in the UK, you probably know we’re now three Prime Ministers in. On our third Prime Minister since the 3rd of September. And, of course, we have a new head of state. And I couldn’t let this occasion go by without paying tribute to the late, great, Elizabeth the Second. The Elizabethan era, the second Elizabethan era, is now over, and we are know in the third Carolean era, to use the Latin phraseology. So really remarkable how things change so quickly. So, over the summer I did a couple of fun lectures, one offs, one on the city of Oxford, quirky little parts of Oxford, one on strange and quirky gravestones in London. Now, it’s back to the heavy stuff. In the spirit of what I did earlier in the year, that 5-part series on Jerusalem. I’m now going to do a 5-part series on Egypt. And that is a country that I know and love very, very much. Particularly, Cairo. And most of what I say over these next few weeks are going to be on Cairo, but also going to other parts of Egypt too. Today is going to be Coptic or Pharaonic and Coptic Cairo, getting the chronology right. Next Sunday is going to be Islamic Cairo. On the 20th of November, to mark the centenary of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922, November 22. I’m going to be doing one going down to upper Egypt in the South through November. Southern Egypt is Upper Egypt, Northern Egypt is Lower Egypt.
And I’m going to be doing quite a detailed one on the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun. Why it’s so famous, why it’s so important, and what came out of that discovery. And then all the way through to 12th of January, 2023, I’m going to be taking us to the modern age and looking at Cairo and Egypt today. What part is that country playing in the region, and the world today, and why that’s the case. Hopefully, giving us some understanding of what really is going on there. Let me just also say something now to put Egypt in its context before I go on to the photographs I’ve got for this morning, afternoon, evening, wherever you are. Egypt is a absolutely fascinating and dynamic country. I personally think it’s one of the most complex and fascinating countries in the world. Think of it numerically, of the 444 million Arabs in the world, I think that’s the most recent figure for the Arab population in the world, as opposed to Muslim population, Arab population in the world. And by that, of course, I’m discounting Iran and I’m discounting Turkey, they are not Arab countries. But we’re talking about the 21 Arab countries in the world, total population of 444 million, thereabouts. The population of Egypt is, nobody truly knows, because of the slight chaos of the country. That’s an understatement. But it’s between 85 and 95 million people. So thinking of that proportionally, one-fifth, approximately, of the Arab world is Egyptian. That makes for a very important presence in the Arab world. Secondly, and all these things are going to frame everything I’m going to talk about, to do with Egypt in these coming weeks. Secondly, it is my belief, it’s not an original belief, but I very strongly would maintain that, Egypt is the pulsating heart of the Muslim world, not just the Arab world.
Now, the Arab League is based in Egypt, it’s based in Cairo. The headquarters of the Arab world is in Cairo. It briefly was out of Cairo, after the Camp David, of course, was signed in 1977 between Sadat and Begin. But after some years of protesting, the Arab League was brought back into Cairo. So it is the most populous Arab country in the world, but I’m going further here, I am saying that despite, yes, Mecca and Medina, the two holy cities of Islam being in Saudi Arabia, and I’m going to make some mention of that next week in relation to Cairo. I would actually say that the pulsating heart of the Muslim world is Cairo and that’s for a number of reasons, which I’ll deal with next week when we look at Islamic Egypt. But, it’s important for me to state it this week to put everything I’m going to say for the rest of today in context. Geographically speaking, Egypt is absolutely located, making it critical for world geo-politics. It is part Africa, it’s part Middle East, it’s part Mediterranean, it’s part European in many ways. Its history goes back to a very Europeanized country in many aspects. It sits on the Mediterranean Sea, it’s in the Middle East. If you go down to Upper Egypt down in the South, it feels like Africa. If you go down to Aswan, any west South of Luxor, if you go down to Aswan and further, this feels like Africa. But, if you’re in Cairo or the Nile Delta up in Alexandria, it doesn’t feel like Africa. It feels like the Middle East. So this is a crucially important country strategically, geopolitically, geographically. And, of course, the Suez Canal, constructed in the mid-19th century, the shares of which are bought by the British, or 51% of which the shares are bought by the British by Benjamin Disraeli as Prime Minister, made Egypt extremely important from the point of view of shipping lanes, and financially, and so on.
Again, more of that this week and in others. So, now that I put it in context, we’re going to go on to some of these pictures for me to explain all of that a little further. So, Emily, if you could shift on to those. Thank you, very much. So, there’s the flag of Egypt. Many Arab countries have this tricolour flag and in the middle of that tricolour, is the eagle of Egypt. The eagle features quite a lot in a lot of Arab and Islamic culture. This is, in fact, the Eagle of Salah al-Din. Saladin, known as Saladin in the West. A fascinating character, Kurdish, born in Tikrit in the 11th century. But, was the first sultan of Cairo. We’re talking about the time of the crusades, the 1040s and the 1050s and so on. Remarkable man. And when the modern Egypt was formed, after the Egyptian revolution threw out the monarchy and Gamal Abdel Nasser took over in the 1950s, this figure of the Eagle of Salah al-Din was put in that middle part of the flag. That Eagle of Salah al-Din also features in the flag of Yemen, or pre-civil war Yemen. Also, in three changed flag of Iraq and also in many of the Palestinian authority, symbols and emblems. You see it pop up again and again. It is the Eagle of Saladin and it’s all to do with the pride that Muslims in that part of the world and the greatness of the rule of Salah al-Din in Cairo. Saladin is, in fact, not buried in Egypt nor was he born in Egypt. But he was the first sultan of Cairo and the empire of Saladin was conducted from Cairo for many years. So, now that I have mentioned quite a bit of that, I want to talk about the four pillars in a way, that Egypt stands upon. It stands upon the pillar of Pharaonic Egypt, going back to ancient times. It also stands upon the pillar of Coptic Egypt, which I’m also going to talk about today. Its third of four pillars is Islamic Egypt, which only, “reached” Egypt in the 8th century– 7th century– 7th, 8th century.
A hundred years after the death of Muhammad, 638 AD. And the fourth pillar is modern– supposedly, and I’ll explain that further, later on down the series, supposedly, secular Arab nationalist Egypt, established by Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1950s after the Revolution. These are the four pillars that all feed in to what is now Egypt. And if you think about what I’ve just said, that makes for an absolutely complex, fascinating and quite riveting country because you have ancient history feeding into semi-ancient history, feeding into mediaeval history, feeding into 20th century history, all components of which are very important. That ancient history isn’t ancient history to the Egyptians. Pharaonic history and Coptic history have an absolute effect on what’s going on in Egypt, today. It’s not just, sort of, dead history. This is part of the dynamic threads of Egypt, today. And it’s very, very important to get your head around the fact that, although Pharaonic Egypt is 4,000, 5,000 years old it has a direct and consequential effect on what happens in Egypt, today. That might sound a strange thing to say. I hope that I’ll be illustrating that both in pictures and what I’m saying, later on down the line. To the next picture, please. And there it is, that is the Eagle on the Egyptian flag. The Eagle of Salah al-Din but with a modern take. A very, by the way, art decor sort of take on it, all these, sort of, angular features. It reminds me of the art decor lions, on the back entrance of the British museum. It’s a, it’s almost a modernist take on an eagle. And, I should add, one other thing that although it is the Eagle of Saladin, it also makes reference to something else. And that is the eagle that used to decorate many of the temples down in upper Egypt, in the south of Luxor.
And, in Cana. More on those, when we get to Tutankhamun on the 20th of November. So, that very symbol on the Egyptian flag makes my point. It’s making reference to the tricolour, in the middle, which is modern Egypt. It’s making reference to ancient Pharaonic Egypt, which is the Eagle. And it’s making reference to Salah al-Din, the 11th century, Islamic Egypt which again, is the Eagle. If ever there was a symbol that brings all those strands together, it’s that one, there. And, to the next picture. So, there is Egypt. And you can see what I mean now, by its important location. There it is, right on the southern eastern to the Mediterranean. It’s firmly in Africa. But it’s also, of course, in the Middle East. The very top of the Red Sea, that slither of a sea just to the right of Egypt that slither of a sea, that is where four countries meet. Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, right at the very top of the Red Sea. And, of course, that feeds into the Suez canal that connects the Mediterranean sea to the Red Sea and that so reduced the all important sea route that the British took to India. If you look at the United Kingdom there, it is the north of Europe, the old British sea route to India was down past France, down past Spain and I’m just running my eyes on the map now across the west coast of Africa all the way down to the bottom of Africa, over to the East of Africa, Madagascar, up across the southern tip of Saudi Arabia to the Arabian sea to India. With the Suez canal being built, that meant the British could now sail by France and Spain down to the Mediterranean, down to the Suez canal and the Red Sea, the Arabian peninsula to India. It dramatically changed the relationship of the British to their empire, in other words, India, the Indian subcontinent and therefore, it dramatically increased the importance of British control and influence over Egypt. And again, more on that later. Onto the next picture, please. You can see Egypt, ooh, just missed one, just one– that’s it, thank you. That little middle one, there. Thank you very much, Emily.
So, you can see there Egypt actually much closer up and again, you can see its neighbours. Sudan to its South, Libya to its West. Israel there, slither of Israel to the East. Saudi Arabia to the East. And the Mediterranean and Turkey up to the North. So, Egypt is right sandwiched between many, many worlds. The Libyan, Algeria worlds of the Arabs. Saudi Arabia, the holy site of Islam. Sudan, firmly in Africa and indeed, one of the largest countries, area wise, in Africa, Sudan. And the Mediterranean, the gateway to Europe. It was for no coincidence, it was Napoleon that described Egypt as the most important country in the world. Because he had worked out already that strategically speaking, geographically speaking, Egypt was essential. And, to the next picture. Here we now see, on that next picture, a close-up of the location of the Suez canal. So, remarkable thing about that picture, just have a look at the green– it’s a satellite picture but look at the green of the Nile down to where the Nile widens out, into thousands and thousands of– tens of thousands of tributaries that all feed into the Mediterranean sea. And then, you have the Nile going down to Egypt, all the way down to Aswan and to Luxor and eventually, at Lake Nasser to down to Sudan. But what that circle shows is where the Suez canal is because, in effect, Suez canal turns the African continent, sort of, into an island, I suppose. It separated it from the Middle East and therefore, from Asia.
And that gives the route from the Mediterranean to the north to the Red Sea in the south. And, moving on to the next picture. There is the Suez canal. It’s a slither, as you can see. Critically important to the shipping of the world and critically important for Egypt’s power within the world as far as super powers are concerned. And, it is surprising how much shipping still– well, how much trade still moves around the world via ships. People would assume, in the 21st century, most stuff is moved around by plane, not the case. The vast majority of stuff is moved around the world by ships. And two absolutely critical canals or essentials at that, the Suez canal and the Panama canal. To the next picture, please. So now, we’re moving on to the meat of today. Two things. Pharaonic Cairo and Coptic Cairo. Now, I say Pharaonic Cairo because the vast majority of the Pharaonic remains in the ancient Egypt. Pharaonic remains in Egypt. They’re nowhere near Cairo, they’re down in Luxor or Aswan because for the vast majority of the time of ancient Egypt, the central power of ancient Egypt was, in what’s now called, upper Egypt down in the south. For a relatively short period of time, that central part was in, what we now call, Cairo. And I just want to give you a sense of how far we’re talking about here with Ancient Egypt. The distance of time between us and Jesus 2,022 years ago is less than the distance of time from Jesus to the beginning of ancient Egypt. The beginning of ancient Egypt was round about 2,800 BC getting up of 3,000 years. So, when we talk about the ancient Egyptians, it’s a bit of a misnomer. Ancient Egypt ran for round about 3,500 years and then it moves into the Roman periods, the Ptolemaic periods. And then it, sorry, then it moves into the, sorry it moves into the Greek-Egyptian periods and then it moves into the Roman periods.
But truly ancient Egypt is pre-Christian, pre-Roman, well, way pre-Christian, pre-Roman and pre-Greek. So, ancient Egypt is over an immensely long period of time. The pyramids go back to old and middle Kingdom. And that is the classic view of the pyramids, it’s the Sphinx and the and one of the pyramids which I will come on to, a bit later. To the next picture, please. And there, you can see the other thing that we’re going to go to because the reason I love this picture from Alamy, it’s not one of my own, is the fact that you have the pyramids in the far distance. The pyramids are on the edge of Cairo near Giza, which is a, sort of, town at the edge of Cairo. Giza to Cairo is, sort of, like I suppose, Wimbledon to London. It’s the nether end of Cairo. And on three sides of the pyramids, you have Cairo and Giza coming up almost to its edges. Only on one side you have that classic desert view. And I love that picture because, you have all the mosques, and that particular mosque, is the Mosque of Al-Hussein and the Rifa'i Mosque, more on those next week. And there you have Pharaonic Egypt in the background and the mosques in the foreground. It, sort of, has it all. To the next picture, please.
So now, we’re moving on and we are looking at what will come next week because I wanted to link this to today and that is, we move from Pharaonic Cairo to Islamic Cairo because Cairo is so essential to the Islamic world. This happens to be the great mosque in the university of Al-Azhar University. And the second thing we’re going to be looking at today, will be, to the next picture, Coptic Cairo. The Copts are the Christian population of Egypt, more on those very shortly. There is an example of some of them demonstrating in Tahrir Square in the Revolution of 2011. And if we move on to the next picture, you can see an example of a Coptic church. And if we now move on to the next picture, we are now going to go to a prototype and first pyramids. The step pyramids of Saqqara, it’s about 22 kilometres from Giza. Giza is a plateau on the very edge of Cairo. And at the edge of that is the step pyramids of Saqqara. Now, Saqqara was built for the Pharaoh Djoser. We’re talking round about 2,800 BC. This pyramid is 205 feet high so we’re talking about a very large structure, here. It was built in a series of platforms. The builders had not yet really mastered the art of pyramid building so it’s a very simple structure but a remarkable structure. If we go to the next picture, we’ll see a closer up view and you can see there, you can get an idea there’s a camel in quite close view. So you can get an idea of the size. This is a tremendously large structure. This is 4,700, 4,800 years old. So this is the earliest known pyramids on earth. And, there are approximately 90, well, they’re not approximately, there are 90 discovered pyramids in Egypt, pyramids in Egypt so far.
There are, in fact, more pyramids in Sudan than there are in Egypt but they are much smaller. Of course, everybody knows about the three Pyramids of Giza. Slightly less people know about the Pyramids of Saqqara but there are many other pyramids dotted around the desert but all much smaller. The three greats are the Pyramids of Giza. But this one at Saqqara is tremendously important because it was the prototype, it was the first time that the old kingdom Egyptian were experimenting with pyramids building. The architect was Imhotep, who was a very, very important architect at the time and built many other buildings. And, if we just go on to the next picture, you can then see, the classic view of those three pyramids. So look how Cairo encroaches right up to them. And you can see three pyramids there, the one on the right is known as The Great Pyramid, the one in the middle is, the second of the pyramids, the Pyramids of Chephren and the one on the left, slightly small, quite a bit smaller is Mykerinos. Cheops, Chephren, Mykerinos, father, son, and grandson. I’m using the Greek names for them. Cheops is also known as Khufu, the ancient Egyptian name. Chephren is known as Khafre and Mykerinos is known as Menkaure. They’re father, son and grandson, all of these three pyramids built over a period of round about 140 years. Moving on to the next picture.
And if we can enlarge this next little slither of picture. Wonderful picture of the three pyramids of Giza, you can see what I mean by the Giza plateau. The most distant pyramid, although it looks the smallest, is, in fact, the largest. That is the Great Pyramid of Giza. Let me give you an idea of the size of it. We’re talking about something that is, I think it’s 489 feet high. Think about that. 2,600 BC. 489 feet high, we’re talking about 751 feet square so it’s such tremendous size, a huge hulk of ability. It’s built on precisely 51.5 degree angle, beautifully constructed and I’m going to take you inside, very shortly. The second of the three pyramids, the son, Chephren, looks the largest there but it’s not. It’s because of the angle of the camera. The pyramids of Chephren, is 53 degrees, it’s slightly steeper than Cheops and it is slightly, slightly shorter. It’s 695 feet square at the bottom. And then we have the pyramids of Mykerinos which is really quite a bit smaller. If memory serves me correctly, I think it’s exactly 51 degrees. Again, the same as that of the grandfather’s pyramids and it’s 215 feet square at the bottom. You also have three much smaller pyramids there, they’re called mastabas where other remains lay. Now, what’s really interesting about these three pyramids amongst many, many other things is that you can see the middle of the three pyramids still has the limestone topping.
So, these pyramids will eventually had been completely smooth, covered with white limestone. But over the centuries, most of that limestone was stripped. It was beautifully, beautifully completed stone and crafted stone, it was taken off and it was used for buildings all around Cairo. In fact, that limestone covering was being taken off as late as the 1890s to build buildings within Cairo. The classic picture of the plateau at Giza. Now, let’s have a look at what each of these Pharaohs looked like. So let’s go to the first one. This is the only known complete image of the Pharaoh that had that first pyramid built. So there he is, the Pharaoh of Cheops, sometimes known as Khufu. It’s a tiny little thing made of ivory. It’s in the museum in Berlin. Beautiful, beautiful, exquisite little object. There is no other complete like so far found of Khufu. If we move to the next one. You can see, at the museum in Boston, Chephren. So, in that second pyramid, a magnificent basalt structure, statue of Chephren. And if we go to the third one, something that I think is absolutely exquisite. Just look at the quality of that. There is Mykerinos, we’re talking about 2,600 BC, let me remind you. Mykerinos with one of his wives, in wonderful condition, in the Egyptian museum in Cairo, at the moment being moved to the new Egyptian museum which is slightly outside Cairo. An enormous move is going on, to the new structure of the museums. Beautifully kept. Okay. Let’s move on a little further now, please. So, look at the size of, this is now the Great Pyramid, itself. Just look at the size of that, look at the people next to it. We’re talking about, that bottom bit, that’s about one-eighth of the height of the pyramids. Moving on to the next picture.
You will see somebody on one of those stones. Can we just go back up, go back up again till we get to– now, there you can see the stones again, and then back down again, thanks Emily. Just look at the size of these things, it is, in fact, illegal to climb the stones and it’s a heavy offence to do so. But, there you go, some people still do it. And if we move on a bit further, I’m now going to start to take you in because there is one of the entrances. This is now taking you into the Great Pyramid of Giza where Cheops is buried. Let’s now go in further to the next picture. And you can see, a plan of what that pyramid is like. It’s a complex structure. I’m just putting on my glasses, here. And so, you can see a whole number of different galleries, there. The one I want to draw your attention to, is the one called the “Grand Gallery”. I also want to point out, what’s called the “Subterranean chamber” which is actually below ground level. So, you have many curdles and many chambers and you will also see some dotted shafts. They have not been fully excavated yet, there are always stories around about new rooms being found using sonar and so on. But the whole of that pyramid, is solid stone with the exception of those shafts and those rooms. So that– you can now begin to understand how difficult it is to find out what else is in there. Look also, at the “King’s Chamber”, the top left label, the “King’s Chamber with relieving chambers above.” The King’s Chamber is dead centre within the pyramid, what an incredible feat of engineering, to get that dead centre.
They didn’t carve the chamber out, after they’ve built the pyramid, they constructed the pyramid around that chamber. So they had to bear in mind, all the time, what they were doing in order to keep it dead centre. It is remarkable. Let’s move on a little further. And you can see there, another cross-section of what is called the “Hidden chamber” there seems to be other rooms behind, there’s lots of investigations going on. The King’s chamber, itself, the Grand Gallery, which I’m going to show you very shortly, the Queen’s chamber below the King’s chamber and underneath all of that is the Subterranean chamber. We do not know the purpose of the Subterranean chamber. Lots of theories, we don’t know for sure why it was constructed. Let’s move on to the next picture, let’s have a look at that Grand gallery. Look at that. It is the most spectacular piece of engineering. Each of these huge stones, you can see the size of them, ‘cause you can see people underneath, they’re perfectly crafted once again. And the chamber goes up, narrow. It’s like a nave of a french gothic cathedral. Going up, up, up inextricably, eventually to its pointed roof. And remember, on either side of these walls, well they’re not walls, on either side it’s just a mountain of stone, of hundreds of feet. So, it is a remarkable concept that these people are working with hundreds of thousands of tonnes of stone, above them, below them, to their right and to their left. I’ve done that. That is a very broad gallery, the Grand gallery. But then you have to crawl through much smaller galleries before you get to the following. Move on to the next picture please, thanks Emily. You come through, eventually, to a doorway. And if you go on to the next picture, you then come through, to this chamber.
Look at the perfection of that chamber. Within that chamber is the coffin, I suppose, it’s the massive chest that contains the sarcophagus and the Russian doll-like gold, wooden and bronze containers that had the eventual mummy of Cheops. Now, that is long gone, we have no idea where it went. It was robbed within a century of the pyramid being built. It was robbed 2,500 years BC. The only tomb ever discovered, undisturbed, and that’s slightly inaccurate anyway, but I’ll say more about that when we get to Tutankhamun, 20th of November. The only Pharaonic tomb that we have ever found almost completely undisturbed and certainly the only Pharaonic tomb where the seals weren’t broken and where we found a Pharaoh within it, with all his gold, was Tutankhamun. And Tutankhamun was a relatively minor monarch. And again, lots of details on that later on. But the reason I’m saying that now, is because one can only begin to imagine the wealth of a much more important and much more wealthy and much more powerful monarch such as Cheops. But just look at the brilliance and the beauty and the perfection of those lines. That room, I say again, is encased within a mountain of stone at every single level. So it’s in effect, a hole within a mountain of stone. Remarkable. Let’s move on to the next picture, please. And, another view of that same room.
The smoothness of these walls is just beautiful. And, to the next one. It’s a more close up, now you get an idea, of how large the chest is, within that burial chamber because the previous photos didn’t give you a sense of the size. It’s a very large chamber. And all perfectly smooth. Look at those stones, beautifully crafted stones. To the next picture. And now we’re going to the Subterranean chamber. Now, look at the Subterranean chamber 'cause it’s directly below the burial chamber. On a direct line, south. Let’s go to the next photo. The Subterranean chamber, is got to, literally, through a series of tunnels under the pyramid. Not so well crafted, these. This is now under the plateau. And it’s not normally open to the public, you have to use your powers of persuasion to get permission to go to these chambers. But they are granted, if they feel that you are bonafide person who has a fascination with ancient Egypt. And, if we move on again after going through tunnels after tunnels after tunnels, you’ll eventually pass through another entrance. And now, to the next picture. Thank you. And you can see, carved out to the bedrock, is that Subterranean chamber. From the MadainProject, which is an important project investigating what this chamber was all about. We do not know. Let’s move on a little further. I’ve now taken you to the outside and the inside of the pyramids of Cheops, the Great Pyramid, so called. But there are many other pyramids in Cairo. This is a pyramid in the middle of the desert or, well, surrounded by desert on three sides. But with the river so close by, a tributary so close by, you have palms and . I mean, this looks, everyone’s image of ancient Egypt and of Biblical Egypt. And this particular pyramid is a very, very interesting one, it’s known as the Bent Pyramid, the Pyramid of Dahshur because it was cons– started to be constructed on one angle, which I think was 54 degrees, going on memory.
But they got the angle wrong. The Egyptians made errors, it often said grammatically, these are perfect buildings, some of them are and some of them aren’t. I’m not a romantic that starts to say, you know, these are the greatest pieces of perfection and it was all to do with aliens coming down to earth and helping human beings build things of perfection, not the case. There were many errors made in pyramid building, as well. And this was one of them. It was started on a 54 degree angle, it was too steep for them to continue and then they shifted it to a 43 degree angle. It was constructed round about 2,600 BC. It was the transition between the step pyramid which I’ve shown you, and the pyramids of Giza. By the time we get to the pyramids of Giza they have perfected the art of pyramid building. Thus, that perfect building that I’ve just shown you, the Great Pyramid. Let’s move on to the next picture. And you can really see the dramatic, look at that, another view. Remarkable on the other side. And you can see the limestone covering on that. So it’s another example of a lesser known pyramid in Egypt where that angle really, radically change because they’d realised they got it too steep to continue the building. Thus it was completed the other way, with a tomb in site. Now, I will be returning to Pharaonic Egypt, later on down the line when we do deal with Tutankhamun because there’s much more Pharaonic stuff to come. I’ve just given you a taste of the main Pharaonic things in Cairo and these are the main things that you would have seen.
The pyramids and the sphinx and the pyramids of Saqqara. But, of course, there are many other pyramids around the world, I just want to show you this one which you might be familiar with. I’ve shown it before, there it is. The pyramids of Caius Cestius in Rome. Built, nearly 2,000 years ago where a magistrate by the name of Caius Cestius wanted to mimic the ancient Egyptians and he built this beautiful thing right next to Porta San Paolo, at the gate of San Paolo. If you go on to the next picture, you can see where it sits, it’s really beautiful. There it is, next to the gate of San Paolo and I will, I hope, be doing a series on Rome, in due course, dates yet to be set. Lots to tell you about Rome. Let’s move on to some other pyramids just around the world. Hambledon in Dorset, there it is. Beautiful little pyramid, a gravestone by an eccentric explorer who wanted to be, he wanted his heart buried in the pyramid, and the rest of his body in the grave in front. And to the next pyramid. You can see another one. This pyramid is in Pinner, northwest London, a pair of little obelisk pyramids. And going on to the next pyramids also, is one you’ve seen before. When I looked at peculiar graves in London that is in Limehouse in East London.
And finally, the pyramid in the mausoleum named, Nether Wallop in Hampshire. Wonderful village in Hampshire that has a pyramid based upon, a much reduced size of the pyramids of Mykerinos, the third of the three pyramids on the Giza plateau. Okay. And there’s a little– there’s a second picture there, closer up, in beautifully, lush Hampshire. Okay. Now, I’m going to speak directly to the camera again, on full screen because now I’d like to talk a little bit about the Copts. The Copts are the main Christian community in Egypt. They are an ethno-religious group within Egypt. They’re rather like the Jews in a sense, the Jews are an ethnicity as well as a religion and so are the Copts. Indeed, the word “Copts” is the ancient Greek word for Egyptian. Now, when most people use the word “Copt” now, people really are referring to the Christians of Egypt but the original use of the word Copt was meaning, “Egyptian”. The Copts are the indigenous people of Egypt. They pre-date the Muslims. The Muslims are almost seen as the usurpers that took over Egypt after the death of Muhammad in 638 AD, Islam swept across, at speed, across the Arabian peninsula and then across North Africa, reaching all the way led by Moulay Idriss, a cousin of Muhammad. Reaching Morocco, two centuries later. So, Egypt fell to Islam in the 700s and then Fatimid Egypt, the great empire of Egypt really took over in the 10th centuries. But the Copts are the indigenous people of Egypt.
And, the Copts today, are the Christians of Egypt. There are other Christians in Egypt as well, there are some Catholics, there are some Protestants but they are tiny in numbers. The Copts number between 5 and 20% of the population of Egypt. Now, why have I made such a widely differing statistics there? Because no one truly knows. And for obvious reasons, of security, of the fact they don’t feel a 100% secure, there are threats of their existence because they are a minority within a very strongly Muslim-majority country, they keep their numbers– secret is too strong a word but they are discreet about the numbers that they are within the country. They are something like 5 to 15% of the population of Egypt, a big minority and there are around about 20 to 25 million Copts worldwide. The Coptic language is a direct linguistic continuation from demotic, one of the languages of the ancient Egyptians. So, we are talking really old here. We’re talking about the true inheritors of ancient Egyptian culture. And now, think back to what I said at the beginning about the fact that Egypt is this remarkable coming together of different cultures. Let’s go on to the next picture, now. And you can see, some of those key Coptic figures. And there are three Saints I’m going to show here. Saint Anthonius, the first. Saint Anthony who founded monasticism, a desert existence within Coptic Egypt. We’re talking about on the cusp of the Byzantine periods, the 250s to the 350s AD. To the next one. Saint George, a saint of England when, in fact, he wasn’t English. Born in, probably what is now, Libya. And buried, well there’s many places that claim to have his burial place. And, the third Saint I want to show you, Saint Marc, one of the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
So, Marc went to Alexandria where he lived the rest of his life and where he died. And so Marc is considered, I suppose, the father of the Coptic church. Very, very important figure. How do Copts differ? What makes them Copts? As well as them being an indigenous group, themselves, with their own language although they all speak Arabic of course, they do. They’ve lived there forever, they speak the dominant language of Egypt but they also have their own language and their own form of Christianity. What differentiates Copts from Roman Catholic church, for example, is the key events of 451 AD which was the Council of Chalcedon. Where the Coptic church, amongst with others, including the Armenians, including the Syriacs and a number of others split from the Roman church over the issue of, “What is Jesus?” Is Jesus both divine and human? Or is He only divine? And that was the great divide within the Christian world after 451 AD. Lots of other divides as well but that was one of the great ones. That is what really defined them, theologically, from the rest of the Christian world at that time. Let’s move on a little 'cause I want to show you some Copts as they are in Egypt. There is the Coptic Pope and the current Coptic Pope is very, very important. So, the previous Coptic Pope was Baba, meaning “pope”, baba Shenouda. This is baba Tawadros, the second. The all-important Coptic Pope. Unlike the Roman Catholic church, which until the second Vatican conference in the 1960s believed in papal infallibility, Copts have never believed their popes to be infallible.
Their popes are, yes, their spiritual leaders but they are mainly leaders that protect them and protect all Copts around the world. They don’t believe them to be, necessarily, Christ representatives on earth to Copts. So they’re not on the same level of, almost worship, that the Roman Catholic held and holds the Pope. So, it’s a slightly different relationship between the laity and the clergy in the Coptic church. Let’s move on a little further. And you can see there, a very important picture of the President of Egypt more on him in part 4 when we look at Egypt, politically. But, there he is, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi the President of Egypt with the current Coptic Pope making a very strong political message, here that you, the Copts, despite being a minority in the country, are a critically important part of the identity of the fabric of Egypt. And the Copts tend to be, I don’t want to generalise it, they tend to be better educated, they tend to– Coptic will intend to have more freedoms than their female counterparts in the Islamic world within Egypt. The Copts were put in control of the managerial, banking, pharmaceutical sectors within Egypt during the Coptic– during the Ottoman period in Egypt. And Copts today, still tend to be the accountants, the managers, the lawyers, the pharmacists, the teachers within mainstream Egypt.
So, as well as having an ethnic hold within the country, and an ethnic identity, they tend to be syphoned into certain jobs within Egypt because of their education and because of the history of the sort of jobs they got. So despite their relatively small numbers, between 5 and 20% as mentioned, they play a really important role in the functioning of Egypt and the identity of modern Egypt. El-Sisi was extremely keen to give the message that after the 14-month brief period of rule by the Islamic brothers in Egypt under Mohamed Morsi after President Mubarak ceased to be President after the 2011 Revolution, Sisi has now been extremely keen to bring about more unity again after the divisions of the Muslim rule in Egypt and that is why he escorted, this very open relationship with the Coptic Pope of Egypt. Let’s move on a little further. A map of the world showing the main centres of Coptic Christianity in the world. Egypt, of course, the centre, the origins and home of Coptic Christianity. A lot of Copts in Australia and a lot in Canada, America, Britain and Italy. So, and a smatter in some of the Gulf states, as you can see. So, they’re all over the world, the Copts are large but the vast majority of Copts in the world still live in Egypt. Let’s move on a bit further. Few pictures about Copts. Coptic church coming up. The classic shape of a Coptic church. And, the next one. Many Coptic monasteries are mentioned, Anthonius, one of the founders of the Coptic church, the Copts have a tradition of monastic life out in the desert.
There are hundreds of Coptic monasteries in Egypt, out in the huge deserts of Egypt. 99% of Egypt is desert, remember, or 98%. And I’ve stayed over the years in a number of these monasteries dotted around Egypt. And, we move on further, a Coptic monastery in the– some of you might have seen if you’ve travelled to the Sinai at the foot of Mount Sinai, itself, a Coptic monastery. It also has a Greek Orthodox section to it, as well but in the main, it’s mainly Coptic. Moving on, it’s the Coptic church in London, in Allen Street in Chelsea. Couldn’t get more London than that, red pillar box in front of it but it is Copt. Let’s show you some Copts, themselves. Who would have thought they were Copts? People from the outside will think, “Well, they’re Muslim ladies” but they’re not. Because they are living in a dominant Muslim culture, many of them will dress like Muslims. Not all, but many of them will, but they’re Coptic ladies. Moving on, again. Some more faces of Copts. There are some Coptic ladies in a huge church within Cairo. Coptic church in an area in Cairo called Klutz Bay named after General Klutz who was an English General at the time during the British mandate period. And moving on again. You can see there, Coptic men in church. And, moving on again. Waving to camera with some priests at the front. And again, please.
Copts living out in the desert. Looking more like some of the Ethiopian Christians but they are, in fact, Copts down in the southern desert. And moving on again, please. Coptic priests. Very clearly identifiable. Black robes, the sloping hat, this rounded hat at the top. And, the next one is recently deceased, January of this year, remarkable man, who I personally knew really well. Father Makary Younan, a perfect example of a Copt operating, very influential man, but operating within a broadly Islamic culture. If we move on, on another picture of him. Father Makary was one of the most famous exorcist in Egypt, every Sunday night he will conduct exorcisms. Such were his powers that Muslims came from far and wide across Egypt to be exorcised if their Sheikhs haven’t been able to exorcise them. What do I mean by exorcise? Well, some thought they had been possessed by the devil. Others were people, possibly with severe mental difficulties, severe– suffering terrible sufferings of the mind. And they were sent to their Sheikh the Sheikh couldn’t cure them, they were sent to psychologists if they could afford it but most Egyptians could never afford such a thing so they would go to their Sheikh. Or if their Sheikhs couldn’t do it, they would send them to Copts. Copts are renowned for people who can cure people with severe mental difficulties.
Let me show you some pictures of some of those exorcisms. If you can move on a little. It, again, shows how really involved Coptic culture is within the wider Islamic culture. Muslim men coming to be exorcised by Father Makary Younan. And again, moving on. Further examples of a woman being exorcised. And, further. These exorcisms take place in Coptic churches all over the country on Sundays. Remarkable things to see. Anybody could go to these churches to look at the– watch these remarkable events. And moving on again, please. Further exorcisms taking place. The final few pictures I’ll like to show you, are some of the oldest Coptic churches in Cairo. Now this has been much restored in recent years. I think they’ve been a bit over-restored now. This is the Hanging Church in Fustat, the oldest part of Cairo. It’s called the Hanging Church because it’s built over a Roman gate house, a Roman citadel. So the church literally, the nave of the church, hangs over the gate thus the name, the Hanging Church. Round and very, very large. Moving on to the next picture. You can see the roundness within the structure. And the Roman structure, below. And on to the next picture. The nave within the church which is rectangular attached to the round building which is above that Roman gate house. And now if we continue further, you can see some close-up to the beautiful wood work and pictures of the Saints within that church. And again, Coptic churches tend to be very, very ornate with these wonderful paintings often on brass, sometimes on wood of the early Coptic saints. And to the next picture, please. And, to the next one.
If you can just make that little gold one even larger. Really wonderful. This is an ancient church in Fustat with these fantastic life-size, almost icon-looking pictures of the Saints. Now let’s look at the next picture and you can see the view of the Hanging Church, you can see that church has behind it, hills. And now, for the last few pictures, I want to take you to those hills because within those hills are the poorest Coptic communities in Egypt. Churches built within the caves. Look at where the people are living, in huts, just beneath. And there is one of the many caves. Look top left hand picture, top left hand corner of the picture and you can see the Ten Commandments carved into that huge cliff, the cliff edge. And if you then walked in between those two tiles of the church, take us to the next picture, please, you would see one of dozens of rock-hewn churches in Cairo. I never saw another tourist in any of these churches but they are there for all to go and see. Remember my lectures on Jerusalem. Anybody come on to anywhere in Jerusalem as long as you are respectful and as long as you relish the idea of being overwhelmed. And to be overwhelmed, in one of these Coptic churches in Cairo surrounded by thousands of Copts is one of the most memorable experience of your life and I found nothing but warmth when I entered. There is one of those rock-hewn churches, there’s dozens of them, in an area called Zabbaleen neighbourhood of Cairo.
And also, the Zabbaleen and the other one is called the Mokattam neighbourhood of Cairo. Moving on, again. You can see the seats in these churches and moving on, again. You can see the last few pictures I want to show you. Because from churches in Cairo, this takes you on to next week’s topic which is Islamic Cairo. Just to give you a taste, there is the Kaaba in Mecca. And, the next picture is the Rifa'i Mosque and the Sultan Hassan Mosque in Cairo. And, the next picture is a whole group of Sheikhs in Al-Azhar University. And finally, is what I suppose will be everyone’s image of the Arabian’s night Cairo. So, I hope that has given you an introduction to the multi-faceted life and identity of Cairo, Pharaonic Cairo, Coptic Cairo. Time for questions and I see lots are coming up there. So, thank you for listening. I’ll take the questions and, of course, next week we will run to Islamic Cairo. Here goes with the questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Glad you enjoyed it, thank you Mira.
Q: “What percentage of Egypt is Muslim?”
A: Well, going back to the statistics I gave, if between 5 and 20% of Egypt is Copt, and I would actually say, let me stick my neck out here, going from all the many conversations I’ve had with many people around Egypt, I think you can say that the Coptic population of Egypt is round about 15% of the country, thereabouts. 12 to 15% so, working on that, the Muslim population of the country is 85 to 88% of the country. There are, of course, tiny little communities of Protestants, Catholics, Jews hardly any left now. Any Jews that are in Egypt tend to be Jews who are travelling through. There are a few dozen left in Alexandria in Cairo, that’s an enormously long and complex and fascinating story for another time, maybe. But, yeah, we’re talking about Egypt, it’s 85 to 88% Muslim. That said, of course, there are a growing amount of secular people in Egypt. People who say, “Well, we’re part of Islamic culture, we’re Egyptian-born but we are not Muslim.” They wouldn’t say it too publicly mainly, some would, mostly wouldn’t so, it is a difficult thing to judge.
Q: How many people in Egypt actually consider themselves believing Muslims?
A: That is a great unknown because of the nature of the society, most people wouldn’t come up and say, “I’m not a Muslim.” Some would, most wouldn’t, so it’s a difficult question to answer.
Q: Who ruled Egypt before King Farouk?
A: Well, it was the Ottoman. So, the Ottomans were in Egypt for 400– 350 years. And Farouk was the last of the, sort of, how could I put it, the puppet Ottoman kings. The Egyptian monarchy that came at the end of that but then before that, you had the great Caliphates of Egypt and I will be dealing with that next week, when we will be looking at the Mamluks, we’ll be looking at the Fatimids, an incredibly colourful and diverse Islamic periods of the Egyptian rule. From the 750s all the way through to the 1450s when Ottoman rule took over.
Q: “What happened to the descendants of the Pharaohs?”
A: Well, that is what the Copts claim they are. The Copts, indeed, claim– but I see you asked that at 5:14, Jacob so probably I’ve part answered that now because I’ve answered that since then. The Copts consider themselves and are considered to be the indigenous people of Egypt and that sort of bloodline from ancient Egypt.
I’m not sure whether Maimonides was the doctor for Salah al-Din– no, he would have been later. Salah al-Din is the 1000s and 1100s whereas Maimonides is the 1200s. But he was the physician to some of the viziers of Egypt, for sure.
Q: “Who do you think built the pyramids?”
A: We know who built the pyramids but, again, I think I would have answered that now. It’s Cheops, Chephren, Mykerinos. If you’re talking about who physically built them, the current thinking is, is that, because it used to be thought they were built by slaves. The current thinking is, it was built by hard workers who were well-paid and well-fed and well-skilled. Why is that the current thinking? Because the more archaeologists dig in Egypt, the more they find. And the most recent finding of hundreds and hundreds of houses buried beneath the sands on the Giza plateau is that we have found some remains of human beings, builders of the pyramids, we’ve looked at their teeth, we’ve looked at their bodies, and we have found good teeth and well-formed bones. So, these people, the workers were well-fed and that would, therefore, imply, amongst other things, that these were properly paid and skilled workers. There’s a lot of research being done on this. The current orthodox is that it was not built by slave labour. Pendulum swing, maybe it will swing the other way because there’s a lot of research being done.
Q: “What is the third statue of this made of?”
A: Of the third Pharaoh. I believe it is basalt as well but I might be wrong on that.
Q: “How do we know that the treasures in museums around the world are not a copy?”
A: We– well, tremendous amount of research is done. We also know the stories, of where a lot of these treasures come from such as the statues in the Boston museum, and then the greatest Egyptian museum in the world outside of Egypt is probably the one in Sherine. The most incredible Egyptian museum in Sherine, the British museum, the Metropolitan museum in New York. We know the stories of how the archaeologists got those pieces so we know when they dug them up and when they . So we know exactly where they came from in ancient Egypt so we know that they’re not copies because we know how they got into our hands.
Q: “How the pyramids were built?”
A: Well, massive amount of arguments but the majority view is, skilled labour, series of ramps and pulleys over, round about, I think it was 38 years the first pyramid was built in. There are, of course, lots of other theories that they were aliens that came to earth. I’m cynical about those things, I’m a rationalist so I go by evidence and I go by archaeological evidence and I’m proud to say that. So, uh, but why they were built and how on earth they got the accuracy, and the brilliance and the quality of the building, well, it never fails to surprise.
“The floor of the chamber is the largest pyramid in Egypt is new.” No, it’s the original floor. Jewish Alexandria in Roman times, indeed, again, for another topic but yes, indeed.
Q: Glad you enjoyed that, Sheila. And, you asked here, “Are there any talks between Egypt and world’s museums about getting their treasures back?”
A: Lots and lots of talks, of course. The Horniman Museum in London recently announced it was returning some Nigerian stuff, some of the Benin bronzes so it seems that museums are beginning to look into that in very real terms. But this is slow, slow talking for the obvious reasons.
Q: “What kind of lighting exists within the pyramids?”
A: Well, it’s rudimentary cable lighting and electric lighting 'cause, of course, it’s pitch dark inside because all these rooms are within tonnes of stone. It’s rudimentary but effective lighting.
Where the pyramids in Dorset is located, very close to a wonderful village called Milton Abbas. And, I’m delighted, you say you’re visiting Egypt in ten days, fantastic!
The Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo ooh I’m not up to date with that at the moment, to my knowledge they are, as is the synagogue in Alexandria. I haven’t heard that they’re closed so my understanding is that they are open but don’t quote on me that.
No, the Mexican, South American pyramids are much, much, much, much, much younger. They are many centuries old, they’re not millennium old. So the pyramids in Egypt are thousands of years older. That is not, of course, in any way to deflate from what you’d see in Mexico or South America, but Egypt is, you know, on a different scale. Egypt is the prototype age of civilization.
Yes, indeed, the Copts do have their own language today but they all speak Arabic because that’s the dominant language. So, Copts are rather like Jews, they all know Hebrew but they’ll speak the language of wherever country they’re living.
Q: “Were the Copts in the 19th century part of any other team deciphering what the…”
A: Uh, I’m not sure the answer to your question, Sheila, on that. About the deciphering of the rosetta stone when you say “were the cults”, I’m not sure whether you’re referring to Copts there.
Muslim population in Egypt, today, I see that what you’re saying, Judy, there. Absolutely I think they do not acknowledge the closer Coptic connection because if they do, that would mean they would have to acknowledge that they’re usurpers of ancient Egypt so they don’t want to do that.
Q: Thank you, Lona, and, um, moving on to Jane, “What was the relation between the Jews and the Copts? Were they competitive for professions?”
A: It’s a really good question. The Jews had their own professions, they were heavily into filming and into the cinema, they were heavily into banking and finance. They were heavily into, um, so I think there was some competition but remember it was the Ottomans that were really deciding there. The Jews and the Copts weren’t making their own decisions it was the ruling Ottomans that were saying, you, the Copts and you, the Jews will be doing this and that. So, I think the choices were part made for them. Coptic children do attend, they have their own schools, networks, schools, um, marriage systems, even banking systems as well. So, yes. That isn’t to say that there aren’t some Copts in state schools with Muslims, of course. But they do have their own track and their own culture and their own systems and everything, really.
I do not know the answer about the Coptic history of anti-Semitism sorry I can’t give an answer on that.
Q: “Were there convents as well as monasteries?”
A: Absolutely, yes there were. Coptic convents, that is.
Q: What is the difference between Coptic, Catholic and Greek Orthodox?
A: My goodness, I’ll have to save that for another time but I did touch on that in the Jerusalem lecture so if you can get access to the recordings of the Jerusalem films, have a look and I talk about it a little, there. And there are, indeed, some Copts in Ethiopia. Absolutely.
Yes. Thank you. Delighted you enjoyed it, Jeff, my pleasure. And, as well, thank you for that, Rose. Just wheezing through these questions, there.
There we go, Rose says, “A Coptic lady from Egypt,” you knew and you didn’t have any idea about her faith, ah, you say, “I wish I had an when I visited many years ago.” Indeed. The Copts in Egypt are a world within the world.
Q: “Is the Ethiopian Orthodox church close to the Coptic church?”
A: Yes but with key doctrinal differences but they are connected. Did the Copts believe Jesus was both human and divine or just divine? Just divine. That was the great divide in 451 AD. The Copts believed that Jesus was simply divine and not human and divine. It was an enormous schism within the Christian world.
We’ve reached the end of the questions, I believe. Yes, I think they’re there.
Thank you all so much. Thank you, Emily. And I look forward to seeing you all again, next week for Islamic Egypt. So much more.
Thank you.