Fayum mummy portraits

Portrait of a young woman, A.D. 110–20
Encaustic on wood; 43.7 x 34 cm (17 1/4 x 13 in.)
Royal Museum of Scotland, National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh

Fayum mummy portraits is the name given to a large number of paintings from the first to third century. These are encaustic paintings, made with hot, pigmented wax on wooden panels, which were inserted into the mummies of the deceased. The surviving paintings are predominantly from the Fayum region in Roman Egypt, where the practice was common and the dry heat preserved many of the paintings until today.

Most of the portraits depict the deceased at a relatively young age, and many show children. According to Walker (2000), "CAT scans of all the complete mummies represented [in Walker (2000)] reveal a correspondence of age and, in suitable cases, sex between mummy and image." Walker concludes that the age distribution reflects the low life expectancy at the time. It has also been proposed that the mummy paintings were originally wall paintings which were copied or used in their original form as panels. Idealization of the deceased may also have been common.

Together with the surviving frescoes and objects from Pompeii and Herculaneum, they are the among the best preserved art from ancient times.

There is also a gallery of Fayum mummy portraits.

References

Walker, Susan (Ed.): Ancient Faces. Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt. New York, 2000. ISBN 0415927447.

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