Coptic wall-painting
- Gallery: Room 66
- Culture: Coptic
- Date: 6thC-7thC (about)
- Object type: wall-painting
- Materials: stucco
- Museum number: EA73139
- Museum: The British Museum
- Collection record: British Museum website
- Image © The Trustees of the British Museum, shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
Listen to the free audio guide
About this object
Before you is a Coptic wall-painting depicting saints Cosmas and Damian, along with their brothers, Leontios, Euprepios, and Anthemos. Above them is a central panel showing the Three Children in the Furnace, flanked by an angel and accompanied by a Coptic inscription. The raised hands of the children in the upper panel are a powerful image of faith and resilience, as described in the biblical story of Daniel.
The painting uses both red pigments and a range of colored figures, with the central panel appearing stylistically distinct from the surrounding figures. This suggests the work may have been created by different artists or at different times.
This piece comes from Wadi Sarga, an area once home to early Christian monastic settlements. Created around the sixth or seventh century, it reflects the enduring faith of early Coptic Christians amid centuries of religious persecution.
See it in person
Coptic wall-painting is on display in Room 66 at the British Museum on Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London — free to enter. Choose British Museum on audioguide.london and take a photo of it to hear this free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
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