Description

Cairo University, also known as the Egyptian University from 1908 to 1940, and King Fuad I University and Fu'ād al-Awwal University from 1940 to 1952, is Egypt's premier public university. Its main campus is in Giza, immediately across the Nile from Cairo. It was founded on 21 December 1908.

The Faculty of Agriculture was established in 1889 during the reign of Khedive Tawfiq. It was located in Giza Palace, which is the same location as the current Faculty. Study continued there until 1911, when it was transformed into a higher school granting its graduates a higher diploma in agriculture. The first Egyptian superintendent (manager) of it was Mr. Abdel Hamid Fathy (Class 1893), after five British deans had taken over its deanship. In 1935, the school joined the Egyptian University as the first Faculty of Agriculture in Egypt and in the Middle East as a whole. Its dean was Professor Mahmoud Tawfiq Al-Hefnawy until 1941. Since that time, the Faculty has been awarding a Bachelor's degree in Agricultural Sciences. Since its establishment, the Faculty has graduated more than 36000 graduates over a century.

Obverse

Depicts an emblem of school (Isis carried some food on one hand, other lotus flowers and a tree on her head) within a shield with dates (1889-1989) to right of two oxen in the front of two men plough ground and other scattering the seeds and in the background the building of Cairo University. Inscription "Centenary of School of Agriculture" above "Cairo University" below.

Isis was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingdom (c. 2686 – c. 2181 BC) as one of the main characters of the Osiris myth, in which she resurrects her slain brother and husband, the divine king Osiris, and produces and protects his heir, Horus. She was believed to help the dead enter the afterlife as she had helped Osiris, and she was considered the divine mother of the pharaoh, who was likened to Horus. Her maternal aid was invoked in healing spells to benefit ordinary people. Originally, she played a limited role in royal rituals and temple rites, although she was more prominent in funerary practices and magical texts. She was usually portrayed in art as a human woman wearing a throne-like hieroglyph on her head. During the New Kingdom (c. 1550 – c. 1070 BC), as she took on traits that originally belonged to Hathor, the preeminent goddess of earlier times, Isis was portrayed wearing Hathor's headdress: a sun disk between the horns of a cow.

العيد المئوي لكلية الزراعة
١٨٨٩ - ١٩٨٩
جامعة القاهرة

Reverse

Denomination and dates (Gregorian and Hegira) within wreath of grain sprigs, the legend "Arab Republic of Egypt" below.

٥
جنيهات
١٤١٠-١٩٨٩
جمهورية مصر العربية

Edge

5 Pounds

Cairo University
100th Anniversary of the Faculty of Agriculture

Subscribe series
KM# 678 Schön# 397
Characteristics
Type Commemorative Issue (Non-circulating)
Material Silver
Fineness 0.720
Weight 17.5 g
Diameter 37 mm
Thickness -
Shape round
Alignment Medal
Mint
Cairo Mint

Related coins

100th Anniversary of the Faculty of Law

Cairo University

Silver, 15 g, ⌀ 35 mm
100th Anniversary of the Faculty of Law

Cairo University

Gold, 8 g, ⌀ 24 mm
25th Anniversary of the Faculty of Economics and Political Science

Cairo University

Gold, 8 g, ⌀ 24 mm