Interest in the study of Coptic Christian culture is growing not only in Russia, but also around the world. Scientific conferences, congresses, seminars are held, which are attended by art historians, linguists, literary critics, and restorers. Icons are an important part of Coptic cultural heritage. They were first studied at the beginning of the 20th century. However, the world learned about their existence relatively recently. This is not, of course, about the monuments of early Coptic culture, which are kept in various museums around the world, their number is relatively small. However, until recently, it was believed that with the arrival of the Arabs, the tradition of Coptic iconography was interrupted. This myth was largely dispelled by a project organized in 1987-1992. The Netherlands Institute of Egyptological and Arab Studies in Cairo together with the Institute of Coptological Studies in Cairo under the leadership of the famous restorer S. Skalova. As a result of this project, a number of medieval Byzantine icons were discovered, probably painted by local craftsmen or visiting Greek artists directly in Egypt. Many icons of the 17th and 19th centuries preserved in Coptic churches were studied and restored. During the project, S. Skalova managed to raise a new generation of young Egyptian restorers who are able to work with icons using modern methods and technologies. Belonging to the Italian School of Restoration, c. Skalova used technologies that differ from the Russian ones, which were tested for more than a century of existence of the world-famous restoration center-VKHNRC im. acad. of I. E. Grabar. In 1999, the staff of the Center for Egyptological Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences (CEI RAS) together with specialists of the VKHNRC took part in a new joint project organized by the Dutch Institute for Egyptological and Arab Studies in Cairo, the American Research Center in Cairo, together with the Institute for Coptological Research in Cairo un ... Read more