Vol.I - The Coptic Orthodox Church

CH.I.] General Structure. 37
Ashraf and of Kait Bey, among the so-called tombs
of the Khalifs at Cairo, where both wall and floor are
decorated with the most exquisite designs and colours.
This form of art is however Christian, not Muslim,
in origin, and was borrowed by the Muslim builders :
or rather was lent by the Coptic architects and
builders, whom the Muslims employed for the con-
struction of their mosques. In the West the art
seems to have decayed comparatively early : though
at Torcello the marbled walls of the apse still remain
uninjured in curious likeness to those at Al Adra.
In the East the art was applied to church decoration
at least as early as the fourth century: for Eusebius,
speaking of the church of St. Saviour at Jerusalem
in 333 A.D., tells of walls covered with variegated
marble. Texier and Pullan give a splendid illustra-
tion of a mosaic pavement at St. Sophia in Trebizond,
which they assign to the second or third century.
Long after the Arab conquest, when the beautiful
churches of central Syria had fallen in ruins, this
form of decoration lingered on in Egypt where
most likely it first arose, and in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, when in greatest danger of
decaying, was adopted by the Muslim conquerors
for the adornment of their mosques, and during that
period, always in the hands of Coptic artists, attained
its most sumptuous perfection.
The same remarks hold good of another like form
of art Coptic mosaic. This differs from the sectile
marble-work more in degree than kind ;
for it is made
of exceedingly minute pieces of coloured marbles
and porphyries tesselated together, but contains also
a curious admixture of mother-of-pearl. The whole
constitutes an inlay of almost incredible fineness.