Μίμησις And Αποτροπή: Towards a Human Participation in Ritualizing the Divine

The Coptic collections of the Hellenic Museums comprise numerous Early Byzantine textiles from Egypt dating from the 4th to the 10th Centuries BC. The attention of this paper will be focused on ten unpublished textiles which display Biblical and Christological iconography found at the Benaki Museum and the Museum of Modern Greek Culture. Following a thorough analysis of the artefacts, they will be classified into three technical groups according to the applied methods of specialized decoration. For the scope of this research, the content of Hellenic and Latin literary sources was carefully examined. Moreover, conclusions concerning their production and use will be presented.