FAYUM PORTRAITS PROFESSIONAL

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.

FAYUM PORTRAITS PROFESSIONAL

Many of the faces of Al Fayyum largely belong to the wealthy or professional members of society. Specimens have been found with crude coloring and construction, suggesting that even poorer people were having their portraits done. There is a wide range of craftsmanship of mummy portraits from Al Fayyum. Subjects were depicted naturalistically, creating a vivid image of the deceased that celebrated their lives, virtues, and achievements. Rather than the uniform appearance of the traditional masks, these portraits manifested the same realism present in Greek and Roman works of art. In Al Fayyum at the end of the Ptolemaic era and the beginning of Roman rule, Greek and Roman influences become apparent on mummification portraits. These masks, however, tended to be highly stylized and all looked similar in appearance. Mummies from this time were found wearing funerary masks made from cloth stiffened with plaster. The practice started to spread to the wider population during the Middle Kingdom. Old Traditions, New ExpressionsĮlaborate mummification rituals for elite burials appeared very early in Egypt’s history, during the Old Kingdom, which ended around 2130 B.C. 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. DEA/ALBUMĪlthough cremation and burial were common in the wider Greco-Roman world, many recent arrivals in Al Fayyum adopted Egyptian mummification rituals. While some masks made an attempt to individualize the deceased’s features, the constraints of cartonnage favored more generic representation. A crown would often be placed on the head-in this case, a floral wreath, a typically Roman touch. This mask features Egyptian gods and religious scenes that will serve to protect the deceased during the journey to the underworld. In the Greco-Roman period some masks followed the older, more traditional Egyptian-style designs, typically incorporating a wig and protective necklace known as an usej. Like the masks that had covered the faces of Egyptian mummies for many centuries before, this one is made of cartonnage, a technique in which linen is stiffened with plaster, sculpted into the form of the deceased’s torso and head, and painted. A seated figure of Anubis, god of mummification and protector of the deceased, appears on either side of the face at chin level. A protective winged divinity appears on either side of the face to guard the deceased in the afterlife. Placed over a distinctly Egyptian headdress, the floral wreath reveals a Roman influence.

This Roman-era mask shown on this page was found in the Al Fayyum area. Many of the Greeks, or Hellenes, had come with Alexander during his conquest. Irrigation systems of canals were built, and it turned into one of Egypt’s most productive agricultural regions producing abundant crops of fruits, vegetables, and vines.Īs the region grew prosperous, people from many backgrounds were drawn to the oasis, leading to a multicultural population of Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. They were drawn to the fertile land around Al Fayyum. 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 an empire that would grow to encompass what is now Greece, Turkey, the Palestinian territories, Israel, Syria, Iran, Iraq, and much of Central and South Asia.Īlexander’s successors, the Ptolemy kings, would rule Egypt for nearly three centuries. The modern-day city of Al Fayyum is located about 60 miles southwest of Cairo, between the Western Desert and the Nile. The artistic style seen in the mummy portraits reflected this cultural intermingling and may have influenced later Christian art.

Petrie was, nevertheless, the first archaeologist to submit these portraits to academic study, beginning the task of piecing together a unique world in which Egyptian, Greek, and Roman styles and customs began to intertwine from the first century B.C.

Fayum portraits