CAIRO — With more than 18,000 icons, carved stones, frescoes and manuscripts in its 27 halls, Cairo’s Coptic Museum boasts one of the largest collections of Coptic artifacts in the world. Yet the lack of a sophisticated security system and an adequate budget makes it difficult to preserve and protect this heritage, let alone carry out an assertive marketing campaign to draw more tourists.

Through manuscripts, frescoes and early Bibles, the museum, in Masr al-Qadima district, displays the history of Christianity in Egypt since the Roman persecution of Christians and later the recognition of Christianity by the Roman Empire. The museum also has an extensive collection Coptic art.

Atef Naguib, the general manager of the Coptic Museum, spoke to Al-Monitor about the history of the museum. According to Naguib, some of the artifacts in the museum had been collected by Gaston Maspero, a French Egyptologist. Maspero, the director of the Egyptian Antiquities Service in the 1880s, then created a room devoted to Coptic art at the Egyptian Museum, also known as the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities.

"As the number of Coptic pieces in this section increased, the idea to build a special Coptic Museum began to shape up. In 1910, the Coptic Museum was founded by Marcus Simaika Pasha using the pieces collected from Egyptian and foreign artifacts collectors,” said Naguib. He added that both Pope Kyrillos V and King Fuad I encouraged the idea of building a museum for Coptic artifacts, and they became patrons of the museum.