Fayum portraits differ from ancient Egyptian representations, which on the walls of the temples and tombs always show the face in profile.Īs for the subjects’ dress, men usually wore white tunics, while those of the women were purple or, in a few cases, green or blue. The Fayum portraits are painted in a realistic style that often expresses sadness and melancholy and usually depicts faces frontally, sometimes looking slightly to the left.
Some portraits, however, were undoubtedly diest painted after the death of the individual for example, when someone died unexpectedly and especially when the subjects were children.
It is believed that a portrait was painted during the lifetime of the subject to hang on the house wall, only to be removed after death when it was placed over the mummy’s face. A very few portraits were painted on linen using the same techniques. The portraits were painted in encaustic (colored beeswax) or with tempera (egg yolk mixed with pigments ) on rectangular panels of sycamore, cedar, pine, or acacia wood measuring around 40cm to 20cm. They replaced the mummy mask that covered the mummy’s head and chest during the ancient period to help the soul recognize its owner in the afterlife.Īlthough mummy portraits were found in many places, from Saqqara, in the north, to Aswan, in the south, scholars call them “Fayum portraits” because they were first found in Fayum and as a great many were discovered there. These works are considered one of the primary sources of the Egyptian museum, which endeavors to teach visitors about this great and ancient civilization.Īt the beginning of the first century, it became customary to set a portrait of the deceased into the mummy bandages. These masks & heads were placed in a position of elevation relative to the body giving the impression that the dead are watching the living. At this same time, realistic plaster masks and heads were also in use. These portraits, eventually found in many places in Egypt, clearly demonstrate the interaction between roman and Egyptian civilization and were made when cartonnage masks were still in use. The elite style of their clothing and hairstyles gives us an idea of the range of accessories used during the Roman period. After encountering many difficulties, he excavated the Roman cemetery and discovered numerous coffins incorporating the magnificent portrait panels that would astonish the world with their naturalism.ĭuring 19, Petrie discovered other mummy portraits which would enrich the museum collections of the world, including the Egyptian museum, with sublime, beautiful, creative paintings of the people of this age. These images, known as Fayum portraits, were first discovered by the famous British archeologist William Flinders Petrie in 1888 at hawara Petri was excavating the pyramid complex of Amenemhat the third, known now as kasr el teeh. The earliest example found so far dates to the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius (14-37 AD). These rectangular wooden panels, with the image of the deceased painted on them, were placed over the mummy’s face instead of the famous masks of the Ptolemaic and pharaonic periods. The Egyptians continued to mummify the bodies of the dead during the first three centuries of the Roman period. The Egyptian mummy portraits dating from the Roman period when Egypt became a Roman province are considered one of the most beautiful creations of the classical world. While there is disagreement as to whether the features of those faces are Egyptian, Greek, Roman, or even Byzantine, the names written on them are Greek, while their clothes, hairstyles and ornaments are Roman.During a round tour in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo’s downtown, close to the king Tutankhamun collection, a unique coffin is covered with portraits instead of a mask like the young king Tutankhamun there are extra traditional coffins called Fayum portraits.įayum is an oasis that lies around 100 km to the south of Cairo, with unrepeated monuments. The portrays depict the entire faces of persons who lived more than 2000 years ago frontally (in some cases their heads are turned to the left slightly). They were a major leap away from the conventional Egyptian painting, at a time when Egypt had opened up to the outside world after keeping to itself for many centuries. Even if the body was drawn from the front or the back, as shown in paintings found in the pharaos’ temples, the Faiyum portraits depict the person frontally. For the first time in history, these portrays showcased the human face from the front, instead of depicting the person laterally. The Faiyum mummy portraits are regarded as the oldest portrayal of the human face, according to Egyptian Geographic.
When was the human face first portrayed? Most probably in (Roman) Egypt, about 2,000 years ago.