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Copts and Ancient Egyptians

PrincessMaryPrincessMary
edited December 1969 in Coptic Orthodox Church
I was wondering if i could get any help for a paper i have to write for one of my electives, a religion class.....anyways..its about the development and influence of ancient egyptian religion on coptic christianity for example
they believed the "ankh" a cross, was a symbol for eternal life
some of our coptic hymns now actually have ancient egyptian music i think like golgotha
how we still use the calender they used - coptic calender
i think also in our funerals, how we do the "arba3een" 40 days later.....has something to do with ancient egyptian funerals anyone know anything about that or have links that could help

thanks

Comments

  • Madonna_2006Madonna_2006
    i know something that's really amazing, maybe you all know it but i didn'tknow it until recently. the coptic language is actually the last version of the ancient egyptian language (the herogleph...i don't know the spelling)

    epouro was also a song sang for the pharoah's and we took it from them.

    ya i would be really interested to know more, if you could wait till i finish my exams then i could look it up for you :) :) but i guess that might be a little late.

    oh i know something, if you go on st-takla.com , it has tons of links so you might be able to find something there .
  • matt88matt88
    [quote author=PrincessMary link=board=4;threadid=4734;start=0#msg64581 date=1165525531]
    I was wondering if i could get any help for a paper i have to write for one of my electives, a religion class.....anyways..its about the development and influence of ancient egyptian religion on coptic christianity for example
    they believed the "ankh" a cross, was a symbol for eternal life
    some of our coptic hymns now actually have ancient egyptian music i think like golgotha
    how we still use the calender they used - coptic calender
    i think also in our funerals, how we do the "arba3een" 40 days later.....has something to do with ancient egyptian funerals anyone know anything about that or have links that could help

    thanks


    Woah, you are really lucky because i know the best book for you! It is called "The Pharaoh's Shadow: Travels In Ancient And Modern Egypt" and is by Anthony Sattin. The whole book revolves around ancient Egyptian traditions and how they are still alive and well in many parts of Egypt, in many different ways with particular reference to the Coptics. It is an interesting book, written by an outsider (so at times i found what he said almost offensive) however the book would be perfect for what you are writing about as he has hundreds of examples. The author even goes to a Coptic monastery and the Cairo cathedral, meets with Dr Ragheb Moftah and others! He draws similarities in so many different fields of life, so really this book will help you tremendously.

    If you do get to read it, please just drop me a line as to what you thought of it (it is, by the way, a relatively small book) as i would be curious to your thoughts on it.

    Many thanks,

    Matt
  • PrincessMaryPrincessMary
    thanks for the help
    but any more suggestions or can anyone provide me with anymore information?
  • jydeaconjydeacon
    well if you go to www.coptichymns.net you will find a lot of artilcles on the hymns and where they came from and stuff like that here's the link:

    http://www.coptichymns.net/index.php?module=library&tid=1&pubcnt=50&orderby=headline:asc&filter=category^sub^31

    there is also many more links on the right side of the page that talks about the hymns hope i was of any help.
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