Archaeological evidence suggests that Coptic Cairo is where the modern city began. But successive later conquerors shifted the urban centre ever northward, to the point that Coptic Cairo now lies out on the southern fringes, well away from all the clamour and noise. Its high stone walls enclose a compound of silent narrow lanes, ancient holy places, and an important small museum.

For a few hundred years following the decline of the old pharaonic religions and before the arrival of Islam, Egypt was Christian. Alexandria was the seat of power and the country’s only city of importance. Cairo-to-be existed as a modest port and river crossing in use since pharaonic times, and as a Roman fortress that went the name Babylon-in-Egypt.

The Coptic Museum was founded in 1908; the museum houses a fascinating collection representing a period of great change in world cultural history, when all around the eastern Mediterranean the old pagan gods were being usurped by the beliefs and icons of Christianity. Here you can see how Greek goddess motifs have become crosses, as have pharaonic ankhs, and the hawk-headed pharaonic deity Horus nestles at the corners of Coptic basket-weave capitals.