Roman-Era, Egyptian Mummy Portraits | Middle East And North Africa

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ROMAN-ERA EGYPTIAN MUMMY PORTRAITS

Faiyum portrait within the mummy wrappings

Some of the greatest Roman-era paintings and works of art from Egypt were produced by Romanized Egyptians, who embalmed their dead, wrapped them as mummies, and painted portraits of the deceased on small wooden panels attached at the head of the shroud wrapped around the mummy wrappings. Sometimes these mummies were put on display before they were buried.

Barbara E. Borg of the University of Exeter in the UK wrote: “The term “painted funerary portraits” used here encompasses a group of portraits painted on either wooden panels or on linen shrouds that were used to decorate portrait mummies from Roman Egypt (conventionally called “mummy portraits”). They have been found in cemeteries in almost all parts of Egypt, from the coastal city of Marina el-Alamein to Aswan in Upper Egypt, and originate from the early first century AD to the mid third century with the possible exception of a small number of later shrouds. Their patrons were a wealthy local elite influenced by Hellenistic and Roman culture but deeply rooted in Egyptian religious belief. To date, over 1000 portraits, but only a few complete mummies, are known and are dispersed among museums and collections on every continent.” [Source: Barbara E. Borg, University of Exeter, UK, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2010, escholarship.org ]

There is little archaeological evidence on the contexts in which the mummy portraits were found. Based on ones in which contetxs were reported: The variety of tomb types is remarkable—from simple sand pits to re-used older graves to magnificent new tombs built for an aspiring family—but one common feature seems to be the very simple form of deposition of the portrait mummies in entirely inconspicuous cavities or chambers and with only occasional, insignificant grave goods. This suggests that the costly and lavishly decorated mummies were mainly appreciated during the funerary ceremonies and festivals for the dead before burial.

Er-Rubayat in the oasis Faiyum some 50 kilometers south of Cairo is the place associated most with these portraits. However, as we know from sporadic additional information from other sites, the shallow sand pits in which he found the majority of the mummies were not the norm everywhere. At some places, e.g., at Saqqara, at er-Rubayat, or at Aswan, portrait mummies were buried in re-used rock-cut tombs from the Pharaonic Period. At Antinoopolis, the city founded by emperor Hadrian and named after his beloved Antinoos, and at Panopolis/Achmim, another site yielding a considerable number of portrait mummies, both tomb types were used.

Mummy paintings were rendered from life using colored beeswax on wood panels bounded by linen strips on the outside of
the mummy. Pigments mixed with hot wax were used by the Greeks to paint their warships. The Romans used this technique to make portraits on mummy cases in the Faiyum region. It is nor clear whether it is the Egyptian influence or the Roman influence that makes the works so exquisite.

Book: "Mummy Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum" (Oxford University Press, 1982).

Faiyum Mummy Portraits

The most famous mummy portraits (painted funerary portraits) are the so-called Faiyum portraits, named after the Egyptian oasis town where many were found and created during Egypt's Roman period (30 B.C. to A.D. 395). They often depict individuals with European heritage, who presumably moved to the area following Alexander the Great's rule in Ptolemaic dynasty (305 to 30 B.C.). and the subsequent Roman period, when the empire made Egypt into a province. The portraits were often painted on wooden panels with the two upper corners cut off so they could be easily inserted into the mummy bandages, over the face of the mummified body, Ben van den Bercken, curator of the Collection Ancient Egypt and Sudan at Allard Pierson, told Live Science. [Source: Laura Geggel, Live Science, published October 17, 2023]

Barbara E. Borg of the University of Exeter wrote: “British Egyptologist W.M. Flinders Petrie “excavated the vast necropolis of Hawara in Faiyum (also spelled Fayyum and Fayum) —which lent the genre its alternative name of “Faiyum portraits”—according to the then latest scientific standards, took plenty of notes, and published his finds quickly both in public journals and in scholarly books. Until today, his reports provide the fullest account of burials of portrait mummies. [Source: Barbara E. Borg, University of Exeter, UK, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2010, escholarship.org ]

Eva Subías Pascual wrote in National Geographic: Al Faiyum is located southwest of Cairo, between the Western Desert and the Nile. Known as Shedet during pharaonic times, the city, the nearby oasis, and the surrounding area were transformed when Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 B.C., incorporating Egypt into his empire. Alexander’s successors, the Ptolemy kings, would rule Egypt for nearly three centuries. They were drawn to the fertile land around Al Faiyum. Irrigation systems of canals were built, and it turned into one of Egypt’s most productive agricultural regions. As the region grew prosperous, people from many backgrounds were drawn to the oasis, leading to a multicultural population of Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. Many of the Greeks, or Hellenes, had come with Alexander during his conquest. [Source: Eva Subías Pascual, National Geographic, October 11, 2018]

Many local Egyptians were peasants and artisans who migrated from other regions of the country. After 30 B.C. the Roman presence intensified under Octavian — soon to become Emperor Augustus — who made Egypt a Roman province. Al Faiyum’s multiculturalism expressed itself in many ways: art, religion, and language. Archaeological evidence shows that the burgeoning population spoke and wrote in Greek and took Greek names — such as Antinoüs, Polion, Soter, and Irene — as well as names bearing Egyptian influence, such as Ammonius.

Culturally Greek families around Al Faiyum and other parts of northern Egypt seemed perfectly comfortable adopting Egyptian traditions and religious rituals. Many Greek speakers worshipped Osiris, god of the afterlife, and inclined toward Egyptian customs in funerary rites. Although cremation and burial were common in the wider Greco-Roman world, many recent arrivals in Al Faiyum adopted Egyptian mummification rituals. Recent scholarship suggests the portraits were created to keep the essence of the deceased intact and encapsulate the moment of a person’s transition from life through death and on to the realm of Osiris.

Identifying the person in the painting has been challenging. A few portraits have Greek inscriptions indicating the name and profession of the deceased on the image itself, such as “Hermione, the Schoolteacher,” but most do not. Visual clues can lend insight to the identity of the deceased. Soldiers and athletes are usually depicted wearing a sash and bare shoulders, respectively. Women are portrayed flaunting splendid jewelry, clothes, and elaborate hairstyles, and children often appear wearing gold necklaces with amulets, a common Roman symbol for childhood.

History of the Faiuym Mummy Portraits

About 1,000 Romanized Egyptian mummy portraits have been unearthed at Harawa and Faiyum, a fertile basin in the Nile basin. Dated mainly between A.D. 25 and 259 and wonderfully preserved by the dry desert condition, the portraits are often beautiful works of art with shadowing and perspective more advanced than that found in the Middle Ages.

Mummification in Egypt appeared around 4,300 years ago. Eva Subías Pascual wrote in National Geographic: The practice started to spread to the wider population during the Middle Kingdom 2040–1782 B.C.) Mummies from this time were found wearing funerary masks made from cloth stiffened with plaster. These masks, however, tended to be highly stylized and all looked similar in appearance. In Al Faiyum at the end of the Ptolemaic era and the beginning of Roman rule, Greek and Roman influences become apparent on mummification portraits. [Source: Eva Subías Pascual, National Geographic, October 11, 2018]

The Faiyum portraits' images inspired artists painting icons in the late Byzantine Empire, as well as artists in the late 19th and 20th centuries.Today, this style is seen as one of the earliest known examples of realistic painted portraiture. A male portrait, painted circa A.D. 250 on limewood, was purchased in the early 1800s by Henry Salt, the British vice-consul in Egypt, making it one of the earliest Faiyum portraits recovered in the modern age, according to "Mummy Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum." The earliest record of a Faiyum portrait being collected dates to 1615, when a group of the paintings was brought from Saqqara, Egypt, to Europe by the Roman nobleman Pietro della Valle. The majority of known Faiyum portraits were found in the 1800s, but in 2022, archaeologists announced that they had discovered more at a cemetery in the ancient city of Philadelphia in Egypt.

Artistry of Faiuym Mummy Portraits

According to Smithsonian magazine: “Two thousand years before Picasso, artists in Egypt painted some of the most arresting portraits in the history of art. Between 1887 and 1889, the British archaeologist W.M. Flinders Petrie turned his attention to the Faiyum, a sprawling oasis region 150 miles south of Alexandria. Excavating a vast cemetery from the first and second centuries A.D., when imperial Rome ruled Egypt, he found scores of exquisite portraits executed on wood panels by anonymous artists, each one associated with a mummified body. Petrie eventually uncovered 150. [Source: Smithsonian Magazine, February 2012]

“The images seem to allow us to gaze directly into the ancient world. “The Faiyum portraits have an almost disturbing lifelike quality and intensity,” says Euphrosyne Doxiadis, an artist who lives in Athens and Paris and is the author of The Mysterious Faiyum Portraits. “The illusion, when standing in front of them, is that of coming face to face with someone one has to answer to—someone real.” By now, nearly 1,000 Faiyum paintings exist in collections in Egypt and at the Louvre, the British and Petrie museums in London, the Metropolitan and Brooklyn museums, the Getty in California and elsewhere.”

Some of the Roman-era mummy portraits recall Modigliani and Rembrandt. Describing a portrait of woman painted around A.D. 55-70, Souren Melikian wrote in the International Herald Tribune: "The wistful aloofness tempered by the faintest suggestion of contentment as if inspired by happy recollections that cannot be shared makes it timeless masterpiece as great as anything the Italian Renaissance ever produced." Forty Faiyum portraits were featured in the exhibit "Face to Face: The People Behind Mummy Portraits," which ran from October 2023 to February 2024 at a museum in Amsterdam.

Although artists painted their subjects with some individualized facial features, they appear to have employed a relatively narrow range of stylistic conventions and characteristics in nearly all extant portraits. These include portraying people with a front-facing posture and large, prominent eyes. Eva Subías Pascual wrote in National Geographic: There is a wide range of craftsmanship of mummy portraits from Al Faiyum. Specimens have been found with crude coloring and construction, suggesting that even poorer people were having their portraits done. Many of the faces of Al Faiyum largely belong to the wealthy or professional members of society. Some experts have suggested that these uncannily lifelike images were painted while the people still lived, and decorated their homes until needed to adorn the mummy. [Source: Eva Subías Pascual, National Geographic, October 11, 2018]

In artistic style and technique the portraits follow the Greek style. Although surviving examples of Greek panel paintings from this era are rare, scholars know what they looked like from glowing literary descriptions. The discovery of the Al Faiyum mummy panels finally let historians see, firsthand, the great artistic skill of first-century B.C. artisans. Subjects are generally depicted in a three-quarter rather than frontal view. Shadows and highlights are employed to reveal contours and curves of facial features.

Stylistic and cultural diversity can also be observed in subtle details concerning the symbolism of the paintings. For instance, the subject of one of the portraits wears a seven-pointed star, a designation of the Greco-Egyptian god Serapis, while others wear crowns of golden leaves, a symbol attributed to Macedon, Greek, and Roman royalty. Aside from their striking appearance, these funereal portraits give scholars great insight into the diverse population of the Al Faiyum region and how different cultures influenced each other. Typically, portraits show their subjects looking their best, so the clothing, hairstyles, and accessories reflect the fashion of the time. They show people dressed not in the Egyptian manner but in the Roman style, showing the influence of the imperial court.

Faiyum Mummy Wrapping and Painting Techniques and Styles

Eva Subías Pascual wrote in National Geographic: Although the images seem highly customized, this impression can be deceptive. Art historians have noticed that many of the paintings are, in fact, schematic drawings onto which individualized traits would be mapped. Close examination of various portraits reveal that there is a basic structure: an oval shape for the face, the position of mouths and noses, and even the poses are often identical from one to another. It is the eyebrows, eyes, hair, and accessories that distinguish the subjects from one another. [Source: Eva Subías Pascual, National Geographic, October 11, 2018]

Mummy portrait panels were typically painted on wood, although some were painted on stiffened linen. Many artists created their paint by mixing beeswax with pigment and making applications in multiple layers, a technique known as encaustic. The term is from the Greek for “burnt in,” but no burning is necessary for creating the paints or the portraits. This method likely originated in the Greek world and may have been introduced to Egypt at the time of Alexander’s conquests. The layering of different colors helps achieve a distinctive range of subtle hues to give the image intensity and depth. Encaustic portraits are easy to spot due to their glossy finish. Some artists employed tempera paint, a mixture of pigment, egg, and water, for portraits. Unlike the reflective surface of the encaustic works, finished tempera portraits often have a flat, matte finish. Another important detail in some of the more costly portraits is the application of gold leaf, which gives the crowns and the jewelry their richness and glow.

Barbara E. Borg of the University of Exeter wrote: “The portraits were painted in three different techniques on either wooden panels or the outermost layer of the linen shrouds in which the mummies were wrapped. The majority of the portraits were painted in tempera technique with a water- based medium. These paintings can be identified by their even surface and the matt, slightly chalky appearance of the color. Many of them are fast-painted, rather stylized, stereotypical renderings with hardly any interest in a faithful portrayal of their patrons’ features. The second largest group is painted in wax color, possibly sometimes with some oil added. This technique is often called “encaustic” (from Greek enkaio = to burn in). The pigments were mixed in with the molten wax, which was either painted onto the support with a brush or spread out with a spatula-like instrument. Details such as eyelashes were sometimes incised with a tip. These paintings have uneven surfaces and rich and luminous colors, and many of them are very naturalistic likenesses. [Source: Barbara E. Borg, University of Exeter, UK, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2010, escholarship.org ]

“Few examples were painted in a hybrid technique with an emulsion paint, which could be brushed on in extremely thin and delicate lines like tempera but had a shine and richness of color almost like encaustic paintings. The boards were often made from imported wood such as limewood, oak, cedar, or cypress, but also local sycamore, fig, or citrus wood have been identified. The boards could be up to 1.5 centimeters thick—especially in the case of lesser paintings—but often were as thin as just 1.5 to 2 mm. Wood and canvas were occasionally primed but mostly painted upon directly. There are instances where the painting has been traced in black in a first stage. “Most of the pigments are colors derived from natural minerals, but dyes including madder, cochineal, and indigo were also quite common.

There are several instances for the use of artificially produced Egyptian blue, and red lead was most likely produced synthetically as well. In many instances, gold leaf or gold paint—a color and material that symbolized eternity—was added for wreaths, jewelry, or as (part of) the background. The wooden panels were fixed over the head of the deceased so that the outermost wrappings held them in place. These wrappings often consisted of layers of narrow linen bands that were wrapped around the body in such a way as to create three- dimensional rhombic patterns or lozenges, the centers of which could be decorated with gilded studs. The feet of these mummies were sometimes encased in cartonnage with the feet indicated on the top and captive enemies painted on the soles of the shoes below. In other cases, the entire mummy was wrapped in one large shroud that was either left plain or else decorated with the body of the deceased or religious scenes and symbols. In a third group, the entire body except the head area with the painting was covered in stucco or plaster painted in red or, more rarely, gilded and decorated with religious symbols rendered in relief.”

People in the Faiyum Mummy Portraits

It is unclear if the portraits depict the deceased when they were younger or around the time of death. According to Live Science: In some cases, the portraits were fairly accurate, according to a 2020 study in the journal PLOS One. A team took a CT (computed tomography) scan of a young boy's mummy from Roman Egypt, digitally reconstructed his face and then compared the reconstruction with his portrait. According to an analysis, the portrait made the child look younger than his 3 or 4 years but was otherwise spot-on. [Source: Laura Geggel, Live Science, published October 17, 2023]

Benjamin Leonard wrote in Archaeology Magazine: Although the identities of most of those represented in the mummy portraits are unknown, the individuals whose names are recorded are mostly Greekand their portraits emphasize their Greek identity. At the same time, the paintings often underscore the mix of cultures that defined the communities in which they lived. “People are presenting themselves on a local stage,” says archaeologist Jennifer Gates-Foster of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill “but also desire to show themselves taking part in the broader provincial culture of the Roman Empire.” While most men are depicted wearing Greek-style garments that were common for prosperous, landowning men of the era, Roman citizens are painted in their traditional togas. Women are often shown with popular Roman hairstyles of the time, wearing vibrant clothing and lavish jewelry. Men, women, and children are often portrayed with various objects of personal, family, or religious significance. For example, many hold a pink flowered wreath to identify themselves as members of the cult of the goddess Isis; others show their affiliations with Serapis, the Greco-Egyptian god of the sun. [Source: Benjamin Leonard, Archaeology Magazine, January/February 2022]

In many ways, the portraits represent idealized, aspirational depictions of individuals. Gates-Foster explains that the opulent jewels seen on women in the paintings, for example, certainly do not reflect accessories they wore on a daily basis. In fact, they might not even have owned such items. “In Roman Egypt, people constructed their mortuary iconography to meet certain criteria that, in the Egyptian understanding of the afterlife, were meant to preserve the body in its most beautiful form,” Gates-Foster says. “We’re not looking at a life portrait, but at an image that was intended to predict and support a reborn form of the individual.”

This, and the lack of actual bodies, makes it difficult for researchers to determine a person’s age at death simply by looking at their portrait. “Some studies have claimed that the portraits were painted in the prime of people’s lives, in their twenties or thirties, and were incorporated into their wrappings when they died,” says Svoboda. She does not think this was the case, however, at least not in every circumstance. There are surviving portraits of children and a handful of paintings depicting older individuals, with graying hair and wrinkles. CT scans of several mummies with portraits still attached, such as that of the 18-to-20-year-old Herakleides, have shown that the ages of those deceased individuals match the approximate ages at which they are depicted. “Most likely,” Svoboda says, “these portraits were painted at the time of death and represent a reflection of the person’s life.” Although scholars continue to debate the extent to which the paintings are intended to be accurate portrayals, they agree that they present a version of the deceased. “They can’t just be anybody, any face or individual,” Gates-Foster says. “There has to be something essential that they communicate about a person for their journey to the afterlife.”

Faiyum Mummy Portraits of Men

A splendid painting of a small boy was preserved after it was wrapped in a mummy with a body. This particular portrait was painted with pigments suspended in hot wax which helped preserve it as well as give it a "creamy" texture. Describing a portrait made between A.D. 190 and 220, Melikian wrote: It "shows a long oval face with huge eyes quizzically laughing as she looked the artist straight in the eye...Her dark eyes stare intensely at the viewer as if desperate for an answer to some haunting question.”

Laura Geggel wrote in Live Science:In the restored "Portrait of 'Ammonius,'" painted on linen sometime between A.D. 225 and 250, a young man holds a chalice in one hand and a flower bouquet in the other. The artist gave Ammonius several distinctive features, including large lips, prominent ears, eye bags and strangely curved fingers, according to the book "Mummy Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum" [Source: Laura Geggel, Live Science, published October 17, 2023]

One of the more realistic portraiture, painted circa A.D. 150, shows a man clothed in white and wearing a gold wreath. A portrait of a bearded man, painted on wood sometime between A.D. 175 and 225 shows a curly-haired, bearded man clad in white. The man's beard may mimic the facial hair of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (reign 161 to 180), who also sported a beard.

The Curly-haired man's beard helped researchers date his portrait to the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Like others with portraits, the man painted here may have had European roots. Many Greeks and Romans lived in Egypt, first during the Ptolemaic dynasty, which started when one of Alexander the Great's generals took over the region, and later when Rome made Egypt into a province following the death of Cleopatra VII.

Faiyum Mummy Portraits of Women

Laura Geggel wrote in Live Science: A portrait painted between A.D. 150 and 200 on wood, shows a young woman with brown doe eyes, a slender nose and thick eyebrows. Pearls, like the ones she wears, are one of the "most ubiquitous" types of earrings in the Faiyum portraits, van den Bercken said. Jewelry and hairstyles can help researchers date the portraits, he noted. For instance, women's hairdos could "be very elaborate" and often reflected fashions and trends from Rome itself, "mainly [from] the empress," he said. However, it's always a question how long it took the fashions of Rome to reach Egypt. In some cases, "something fashionable in Egypt might have already gone out of fashion in Rome itself," van den Bercken said.[Source: Laura Geggel, Live Science, published October 17, 2023]

In the portrait of the girl with gold wreath, painted on wood between A.D. 120 and 130, we see a young girl wearing a pearl necklace and a golden wreath in her hair. "This wreath is an indication that she 'overcame' death," van den Bercken said. In Man with gold wreath, painted on wood sometime between A.D. 150 and 200, we see a bearded man sporting his own gold laurels.

One portrait, painted on wood between A.D. 300 and 400, shows a woman wearing pearl earrings. Another, painted on wood sometime between A.D. 175 and 200, shows a dark-haired woman wearing a matching necklace and earrings. "A lot of detail has been put in the composition of eyes and eyelashes," van den Bercken said. A few clues hint that the deceased were upper-middle class or elite, including that many wore ornate jewelry in these portraits. In addition, individuals or their families had to pay an artist for the portrait. "They were not easy to make, not cheap to make resource-wise," van den Bercken said. "The people who ordered them must have had some financial means to do this."

A woman wearing a fancy necklac ewas painted sometime between A.D. 160 and 190. In another portrait a woman, painted on wood between A.D. 170 and 200, wears pearl earrings, a necklace, a hot-pink tunic and black clavi, or vertical strips of ornamentation. Her curly hair is drawn into a bun. This portrait, was found in Egypt in the 1880s, according to "Mummy Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum."

Study of the Faiyum Mummy Portraits

Seen under visible light (left) and ultraviolet light (right), this portrait offers an example of how artists used a textile dye called madder to create the pink hue on the woman’s lips and garment, from Archaeology magazine and the British Museum

Barbara E. Borg of the University of Exeter wrote: ““Unfortunately, none of the lucky finders, including some archaeologists, provided any reports that give more details about the kinds of tombs, grave goods, burial practices, and rituals surrounding the portrait mummies. In the absence of archaeological contexts, the dating of the mummy portraits has been based on two criteria: their style and their antiquarian detail, especially their fashion hairstyles.” Criticism of these methods “is based on the following observations: 1) Research in other artistic genres has shown that there was no linear development of style and that both naturalistic and abstract styles were used simultaneously throughout the Roman era. Thus, any dating based on style should be backed up by other evidence. 2) A systematic comparison of the hairstyles on mummy portraits reveals that the vast majority of them correspond to the fast-changing fashion of hairstyles used by the elite of the rest of the Roman Empire. They, in turn, often followed the fashion of the Roman emperors and their wives, whose images and coiffures can be dated through their depictions on coins. 3) Those hairstyles fashionable in the later third and fourth centuries are almost completely absent from the mummy portraits.

Researchers are using new scientific methods to investigate how the Faiyum mummy portraits were made. Researchers use special camera filters under different light wavelengths (visible, ultraviolet, and infrared) to identify pigments and binding agents. J. Paul Getty Museum antiquities conservator Marie Svoboda and her colleagues in the APPEAR (Ancient Panel Paintings: Examination, Analysis, and Research) program, according to Archaeology magazine, are examining panels using noninvasive techniques such as X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and broadband spectral imaging, as well as sampling tiny pieces of wood, to identify the types of timber, binding agents, and pigments at the ancient artists’ disposal. As of 2022 they had studied one-third of all known mummy portraits, allowing time, scientists to compare visual elements of the paintings as well as the materials and techniques artists used to create them. [Source: Benjamin Leonard, Archaeology Magazine, January/February 2022]

Little is known from ancient texts about funerary portrait painters and their practices, and archaeologists have uncovered few traces of painting workshops. For a long time the portraits lingered in a sort of classification limbo, considered Egyptian by Greco-Roman scholars and Greco-Roman by Egyptians. By studying what remains on the paintings’ surfaces — and what lies beneath — researchers are learning where artists obtained their materials, investigating how economic considerations might have motivated the choices of patrons and painters, and even revealing hidden brushstrokes that offer a glimpse of how artists created their work. In the future, their research may provide insights into regional differences among the portraits and into how people chose to represent themselves in death.

At the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek museum in Copenhagen scientists using luminescence digital imaging to analyze the portraits documented extensive use of Egyptian blue, a copper-containing synthetic pigment, around the eyes, nose and mouth, perhaps to create shading, and mixed with red elsewhere on the skin, perhaps to enhance the illusion of flesh. “The effect of realism is crucial,” says the museum’s Rikke Therkildsen. [Source: Smithsonian Magazine, February 2012]

Wood and Pigments Used in the Faiyum Mummy Portraits

Benjamin Leonard wrote in Archaeology Magazine: Ancient portrait painters and the clientele who commissioned them, it seems, had a marked preference for imported types of wood. About 70 percent of the panels Caroline Cartwright, a senior research scientist at the British Museum, has examined are made of lime wood (Tilia europaea), which came from Europe. Given its strength and elasticity, Cartwright says, this was a sensible choice for panel portraits. “Lime wood has an even texture and grain, and the cells are pretty uniformly sized,” she says. “It’s very suitable for applying really fine pigments.” [Source: Benjamin Leonard, Archaeology Magazine, January/February 2022]

Ancient painters had a fairly small choice of colors in their palettes, so they often mixed them to create a wider range. “These artists were masters of their pigments,” Svoboda says. “They understood how to produce and use them, and how to achieve colors and illusions they wanted with the materials available to them.” One commonly used pigment was Egyptian blue, which had to be manufactured since naturally occurring, affordable blue pigments were rare. APPEAR researchers have found that Egyptian blue was a far more versatile material than they initially realized, and that painters used it to render garments and eyes, and even to create ruddy flesh tones. “Artists added a little bit of Egyptian blue to white pigments to make them more intensely bright or to add cool shadow tones,” says Svoboda. “They also mixed it with other colors to produce greens and purples, such as the famous Roman imperial purple.”

Artists were not limited to pigments that could be obtained locally. The linen wrappings of a fully intact mummy belonging to a young man named Herakleides are painted red, a ritually important color in ancient Egypt that evoked the setting sun and signified death and rebirth in the afterlife. Scientists from the Getty Conservation Institute detected this same red lead pigment on seven other mummy shrouds in museums affiliated with the project, including that of a woman named Isidora. “They discovered that this pigment was imported from southern Spain,” Svoboda says. This could indicate that the mummies were the work of a single painting workshop. Svoboda explains that lead’s toxicity suggests that painters also understood the science behind the materials they used. “To preserve something into the afterlife,” she says, “it makes sense to use a toxic material that would deter biological deterioration and pests such as insects or rodents.”

Patron-Subjects of Roman-Era Egyptian Mummy Portraits

Barbara E. Borg of the University of Exeter wrote: “Some tried to interpret the patrons’ features in terms of their assumed character, an approach that has proven highly problematic. It not only ignores the fact that the images were made to impress their viewers and thus present us with a representation that is at least partly a deliberate construction, but it also underestimates the gap between the ancient and our own culture. Another hot topic of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the ethnic identity of the individuals, which was equally approached with much confidence through their physical features. [Source: Barbara E. Borg, University of Exeter, UK, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2010, escholarship.org ]

“Anthropologists had long demonstrated that there is no firm methodological basis for identifying peoples on the basis of their facial features alone. Moreover, papyrologists and historians have found that there was so much intermarriage between native Egyptians and immigrants from the entire eastern Mediterranean already during the Hellenistic era that distinct ethnic groups no longer existed in the Imperial Period except for the poor peasant population. Accordingly, focus now shifted to the far more interesting question of social class and the different cultural traditions from which this mixed population took their inspiration and constructed their identities. The deceased were identified as belonging to the rich elite of the local population. Not just the paintings but especially the mummies were extremely expensive, and even more so when they were gilded. Several men present themselves in military guise and thus are likely to be veterans of the Roman army. They received Roman citizenship and other privileges after retirement and belonged to the financial and social elite of their villages.

“One individual is identified by an inscription as a naukleros, a freight contractor for commercial transport by water, an occupation known through papyri to have been particularly profitable. A number of boys stand out through their unusual coiffure with long hair parted on the forehead and bound into a bun in the neck. The ancient author Lucian identified this hairstyle as typical for children of the noblest local elite of Egypt, who trained their sons in the gymnasium and cultivated their Greek heritage. Hairstyles, dress, and jewelry correspond closely to the fashions followed by the elite of the rest of the Roman Empire. These observations are in accordance with the sites from which the portrait mummies derive, almost all of which were cities and villages that had accommodated a large number of Greek immigrants from the Hellenistic Period on, after the conquest of Egypt by Alexander. The same locations were also the preferred settlement sites of veterans in the Roman Period.

“When it comes to religious beliefs, however, the hellenized villages of Egypt had entirely adapted to the Egyptian cult, which also determined their burial rites. Thus, mummification was not just an arbitrary whim. The decoration on many of these mummies consists of scenes and symbols that are entirely intelligible and express the most fundamental ideas of Egyptian belief about resurrection and a cheerful afterlife in the presence of the gods. This twofold anchoring in the Hellenic as well as Egyptian tradition is corroborated by the names that are sometimes inscribed on either the portrait or the mummy itself. We find Greek names as well as Egyptian and a few Latin ones. They indicate a particular affinity with one or the other cultural framework, though papyrological evidence makes it clear that individuals could also have two names from a different background, which they would use according to the traditions a particular social environment drew upon. The patrons of the mummy portraits can thus be identified as members of the affluent local elite of towns and villages that were strongly influenced by Hellenistic and, to a lesser extent, Roman culture, who were keen to be members of the wider elite of the Empire and, at the same time, appreciated the wisdom and promises of Egyptian religion.”

Purpose of the Roman-Era Mummy Portraits

Barbara E. Borg of the University of Exeter wrote: “The fact that many of the painted funerary portraits are highly naturalistic and individualistic and that older individuals are very rare has suggested to some that the likenesses were painted during the lifetime of the individuals depicted, that they had decorated the walls of their houses and were put onto the mummy only after the sitter’s death. During the “Third Reich”, the doubtful results of such attempts were integrated into Nazi propaganda. The alleged identification of a large number of Jews in the mummy portraits served to demonstrate the danger of Jewish infiltration of society already in antiquity. As a reaction, after the Second World War scholars mostly steered clear of any attempts at identifying the portraits’ patrons. It was only in the late sixties and especially from the later nineties of the last century onwards that the question was approached again from a different angle. [Source: Barbara E. Borg, University of Exeter, UK, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2010, escholarship.org ]

“This assumption has been seriously challenged. As recent studies of both papyrological evidence and anthropological studies of Roman cemeteries have confirmed, the average life expectancy was rather low. CAT scans of preserved portrait mummies did not reveal any obvious discrepancy in age of the painting and body either. Given the very rarity of portrait mummies—Petrie counted one to two for every 100 burials—it is also possible that this honor was only awarded to those whose death was considered particularly tragic, such as a premature demise. Moreover, the background of the paintings often does not cover the entire panel, and only the oval central part was fully covered by paint, in anticipation of what would be visible on the mummy, i.e., framed by the mummy wrappings.

“Some highly realistic portraits painted on the outermost layer of the linen shroud in which the mummy was wrapped could only have been painted at the last stage, thus confirming that naturalistic images could also be created after death— either from memory or based on another portrait of a different function. It is therefore very likely that the portraits were created with their funerary purpose in mind.While mummification and Egyptian scenes and symbols on the mummy secured the survival of the deceased in the world beyond, the realistic portrait alluding to the deceased’s status and life on earth secured his or her survival in the memory of society.”

Significance of the Roman-Era Mummy Portraits in Art History

Mummy portrait of the young woman Antinoopolis, 2nd century AD, at the Louvre

Barbara E. Borg of the University of Exeter wrote: “The most striking feature of the painted funerary portraits is their naturalism and immediacy, which delude us to believe we could have met the person somewhere on the street just a day or two ago. While there were occasional attempts at naturalism in Egyptian art, it was only in Hellenistic Greece that the kind of realism we are faced with in the mummy portraits was introduced. Due to less favorable conditions for preservation in that region, very few paintings—painted on stone rather than wood or linen—have come down to us. However, the existence of panel paintings is attested in the written sources, and the naturalistic style is documented in marble portraiture. [Source: Barbara E. Borg, University of Exeter, UK, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2010, escholarship.org ]

“With the Romans, self- representation through naturalistic portraiture became more widespread and an important marker of status. While material evidence for panel paintings is still lacking from the rest of the Mediterranean, there are occasional examples of painted portraits on walls and glass disks, which are rather similar in style to the mummy portraits. This is in accordance with the introduction date of mummy portraits into Egypt. The style of painting must have been introduced by the Greeks already in the Hellenistic Period, at least in Alexandria, while the adoption of realistic portraits into funerary imagery was encouraged by the new requirements of Roman society.

“It is sometimes claimed that Christian icons depended on the mummy portraits. This statement is both right and wrong. It is wrong insofar as the mummy portraits had long been buried when the first icons were produced and could not have served as direct inspiration. It is correct, however, in the sense that icons continued the old tradition of portrait painting of which the mummy portraits have been one group among others. For the history of art and painting, the mummy portraits are not so much important as examples of a particular style or developmental stage. Their significance lies in the fact that they are basically the only panel and canvas paintings that have been preserved from the ancient world. As such, their value can hardly be overestimated.”

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum, The Egyptian Museum in Cairo

Text Sources: UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, escholarship.org ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Egypt sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Tour Egypt, Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com; Mark Millmore, discoveringegypt.com discoveringegypt.com; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian,AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated November 2024