Coptic art
The art of a community of Christianized Egyptians (Copts became Christians around the second century AD), that merges Egyptian, Hellenistic and Byzantine elements. Its funerary sculptures are characterized by rigidity, while its frescoes use spot and color surfaces and include decorative animal and plant shapes as well as forms of men with thick eyebrows and bulging eyes (also saved valuable fabrics of similar style). The remarkable Coptic buildings are the Red and White Monastery in Sohag and churches of the 11th and 12th century in Old Cairo. The initial three-aisled of basilica type buildings are gradually evolved in a Coptic type of cellular structure, with numerous chapels and cells.