more photos
site details
0900-1600 M-Th
0900-1600 S-Su
0900-1130 Fri
1330-1700 Fri
E£16 entry
E£6 students
E£10 camera
E£150 video camera
relevant links
history
Greco-Roman Museum, page 2
Many of the displays are devoted to the Greco-Roman god Serapis who was a weird fusion of the Osiris myth with the god Dionysus. He is shown as a bearded human, or as a huge bull. The statue of the granite bull in the museum was carved during the time of Hadrian. The Romans managed to keep all the old cults while blending them with their own religion.
a statue of the apis bull and part of a greco-roman frieze
It led to some really odd statues, both in the museum and some carvings in the Catacombs of Shouqafa -- including a bizarre Anubis in a roman tunic.
the odd mixture of roman and egyptian symbology
There are dozens of disembodied heads and busts in the museum, usually of the Ptolemies and Roman emperors. There is a huge headless porphyry (red stone) statue, which our guide told us was either a) a representation of Christ or b) Diocletian, who mean to exterminate the christians.
a damaged painted plaster fresco
