Egypt Museum

faiyum portrait

Egyptian Mummy (Faiyum) Portraits c. 1st century B.C. - 3rd century A.D.

The Faiyum Portraits

The so-called Faiyum portraits; hauntingly lifelike painted panels affixed to mummies from the Roman Period, are often misrepresented as evidence of Greek or foreign settlers in Egypt. Yet the scientific, archaeological, and cultural record tells a very different story. These portraits, dating mainly from the 1st century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D., come chiefly...

Mummy Portrait of a Man

This mummy portrait of a man, painted around 150–225 A.D., is a striking example of the Faiyum portrait tradition; an evocative fusion of Egyptian funerary practices and Greco-Roman artistic techniques. This particular portrait, rendered in encaustic (hot wax) paint on a panel of sycamore fig wood, comes from Antinoé in Middle Egypt, a city founded...