fayoum mummy portraits
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During the first to third century AD in Egypt, painted panel portraits, more commonly referred to as the Fayoum portraits (also written Fayum) were sometimes placed over the heads of mummies. The "Fayoum Portraits" are remarkably life-like paintings of the deceased that were once bandaged in place over the face of the mummy. These portraits were, in many cases, finely executed in encaustic paint on wood or occasionally on stuccoed linen. With their direct full gaze and strong presence, they bring the inhabitants of Greco-Roman ancient Egypt before us with compelling intimacy.

They were initially unearthed from cemeteries in the Fayoum and first archaeologically excavated in 1888 and between 1910 and 1911 by Flinders Petrie at Hawara. Since then, they have been discovered at sites throughout Egypt from the northern coast to Aswan in the south. These were paintings made with encaustic (coloured beeswax) or tempera (watercolour) on wooden panels or linen shrouds and were rendered in a Hellenistic style not unlike contemporary frescoes discovered at Pompeii and Herculaneum in Italy. Nevertheless, it is believed that such two-dimensional paintings held the same ideological function as traditional three-dimensional masks.

The portraits were popular among nineteenth and early twentieth century collectors, and this had a tendency to  isolate them from their funerary contexts. They were studied by classicists and art historians who, basing their conclusions on details in the paintings such as hairstyles, jewellery and costume, identified the portraits as being those of Greek or Roman settlers who had adopted Egyptian burial customs. In fact successful attempts have been made, based on the analysis of brush strokes and tool marks and the distinctive rendering of anatomical features, to group these portraits according to schools and to identify some individual artistic hands. 

From Hawara, Egypt Roman Period, AD 55-70 This portrait is painted in encaustic on limewood. The woman is dressed in a mauve tunic, and a mantle of a darker shade. She wears gold ball earrings and a gold necklace with a pendant crescent and circular terminals. The hair is plaited into a bun at the back of the crown, with snail curls around the brow and at the sides of the head. Her hairstyle, costume and jewellery indicate that she died some time during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero (AD54-68). It has been said that the athletic quality of this portrait is more appropriate to that of a man.	From Hawara, Fayoum, Egypt, Roman Period AD 100-120 This portrait was attached to an Egyptian-style mummy, and appears to be a naturalistic depiction of the subject, thus perpetuating the memory of the woman's physical appearance. However, since the mummy has not survived, it is uncertain how naturalistic it was. This feature was a direct result of the Greco-Roman influence of the period. The mummy portrait, painted in encaustic on limewood, was excavated by Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) in 1888.	From Hawara, Fayoum, Egypt, Roman Period AD 100-120 The subject of this portrait, painted in encaustic on limewood, appears to be a man in his fifties or sixties of strikingly Roman appearance. He is dressed in a tunic with a violet stripe, or clavus, and a thick folded mantle. The hair is brushed forward and cropped in the style of court portraits of the Trajanic period (AD 98-117). The portrait gives the impression of age, authority and austerity. These characteristics were very important in Rome, and are here represented in a very Roman manner.	From er-Rubayat, Egypt. Roman Period, c AD 160-170 This portrait is one of the finest of those attributed to the cemetery of er-Rubayat in the Fayoum. Encaustic on limewood. The woman's hair is arranged in the fashion of the mid-second century AD. She wears a gold wreath of leaves, an unusual purple tunic with gold bands, and a white mantle. Her earrings are made of emeralds set in gold, with suspended pearls. Her necklace has a large emerald and a red stone in gold mounts separated by gold plaques. The quality of the portrait and the lavishness of the lady's dress shows that she belonged to the highly Romanised elite.

There may well have been another use for these paintings. The fact at least one portrait (now in the British Museum) was discovered at Hawara still within a wooden frame, indicates that the paintings may have had a domestic use prior to inclusion within the funerary equipment. They may have been hung in the owners home prior to such use.

Together with the surviving frescoes and objects from Pompeii and Herculaneum, and tomb frescoes in Macedonia, these portraits are amongst the best preserved paintings from ancient times. They are remarkably naturalistic and it is believed that they were painted during the subject's lifetime. It is, however, debatable whether the portraits depict the subjects as they really were. Analyses have shown that the painters depicted faces in a repetitive and formulaic way, albeit with a variety of hairstyles and beards. They appear to have worked from a number of standard types without making detailed observations of the unique facial proportions of specific individuals which give each face its own personality.

Many museums around the world have fine examples of Fayoum mummy portraits on display, notably the British Museum, the Royal Museum of Scotland, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Louvre in Paris. Most mummy portraits that have survived have unfortunately become separated from the mummies to which they were attached. Because of this we rarely know the identities of the subjects.

Portrait gallery courtesy of Wikpaedia and the British Museum