Marble panel from a house in Cairo, carved on one side with a cross on a globe, and on the other with interlacing scrolls, Egypt, 6th-7th century (Coptic period), altered and reused in the late 13th or early 14th century (Mamluk period).

Marble panel, carved on both sides. One side has a tall slender cross with splayed ends standing on a globe. The other side was carved in the Mamluk period, in two different levels of relief. The symmetrical floral design is based on the repetition twice along the vertical axis of an eight-lobed medallion (the top and bottom lobes are pointed and the three lobes on either side are rounded); and along the horizontal axis with a double back-to-back palmette motif at the centre. The surface of the medallions and palmettes is completely flat. The background is full of scrolls with split palmettes, the veins of which are heavily represented. Traces of red pigments and gilding can also be seen on the surface.

This panel was acquired by the Museum through the agency of Captain J.S. Blunt of the British Army in Cairo. According to correspondence on the registered papers under his name, the slab was found in the wall of a house near the Arab Museum in Cairo, when it was pulled down for alterations. Another letter from Captain Blunt states "with regard to details as to the origin of the stone, it was obtained from a house not very far from the Citadel which was to be demolished for road-widening purposes. The stone was built into a wall with the greater part of it buried below ground level, with the projecting portion being used as a backing for a small fountain". This accounts for the eroded appearance of the lower half of the panel.

This large marble slab is carved on both sides. One side features a tall slender cross with splayed ends standing on a globe. Earlier discussions (in the Museum registers and registered papers) of the cross-on-globe motif have called it Coptic, but it is more characteristic of Byzantine art, especially examples of Byzantine production from Syria.
For example, the motif appears on the pulpit in San Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, the carving and decoration of which may have been influenced by marble-carving in Antioch, and on an ivory diptych in the British Museum depicting the Archangel Michael (for both, see O.M. Dalton's Catalogue of the ivory carvings of the Christian era etc, British Museum, 1909). This side of the panel was probably carved between 500 and 650, and may originally have come from the choir enclosure in a church.

The other side of the slab was carved in the Mamluk period, probably between 1470 and 1500, since its carving technique and decoration can be compared to monuments built under the patronage of Sultan Qa'itbay (reigned 1468-96). During this period, stone carving seems to have enjoyed a revival; and the style of carving in different levels of relief, with the main pattern standing out as a flat surface, as well as the type of design, are characteristic of the art of the Qa'itbay period. These features are all seen, for example, in the dome built for his mausoleum between 1472 and 1474.

The slab may have been part of the wall revetment of a Mamluk palace. Before it was acquired by the Museum in 1930, however, the slab had been built into the wall of a house in Cairo, which was demolished in order to build a road. The greater part of the panel was buried below ground level, with the upper portion serving as the back of a small fountain. This accounts for the eroded appearance of the lower half of the panel, which is otherwise in extremely good condition.



Coptic decoration started to become the dominant style in Egypt in the 6th century, but there were also a number of Byzantine churches in Egypt, for example at Abu Mina near Alexandria (completed about 490), the cathedral at Hermopolis, near Cairo (built 430-440), and the monasteries of the Wadi Natrun. Perhaps this marble panel was taken from one of these buildings.

Two patterns cover the surface. One, composed of cusped roundels and palmettes, runs over the other, an arabesque of curling stems set with stylised leaves. Both were once gilded over a red ground. Damage near the base occurred when the panel was reused as the back of a fountain.

A.99-1930