IFAO

Under the impulse of the Comité de conservation des monuments de l’art arabe, in 1897 the architect Max Herz Bey expressed the idea of creating a museum for the Christian antiquities. With the support of Patriarch Cyril V, the site selection focused on the old patriarchal residence of Qaṣr al-Šamʿ. Marcus Simaika Pasha launched in 1908 a subscription to raise funds for the last restoration works of the building. The museum opened in 1910, but soon was considered too small and expansion works were projected. The discovery of unpublished archives on the building has allowed reconsidering not only the history of the museum but also the sense that it took in the first half of the 20th century within an identity construction scheme for the Coptic community.