Portrait of a young woman, A.D. 110–20
Encaustic on wood; 43.7 x 34 cm (17 1/4 x 13 in.)
Royal Museum of Scotland, National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh

Fayum mummy portraits is the name given to a large number of paintings from the first to third century. These are encaustic paintings, made with hot, pigmented wax on wooden panels, which were inserted into the mummies of the deceased. Fayum portraits represent mostly Greek inhabitants of Egypt^[1][2] and are some of the most interesting examples of surviving Greek art in Ancient Egypt.^[3] The surviving paintings are predominantly from the Fayum region in Egypt and were completed during Hellenistic and Roman periods in a province of Egypt which had been settled primarily by Greek colonists,^[4][5][6] many of whom were soldier-veterans. The practice was common and the painters of the Fayum were either Greek residents dating from the Ptolemaic period of the late 4th century bc,^[7][8][9] or those who had inherited the Greek artistic tradition. The dry climate of the region preserved many of the paintings until today. First of many Fayum paintings. ... A 6th-century encaustic icon from Saint Catherines Monastery, Mount Sinai. ... candle wax This page is about the substance. ... Mummified cat from Ancient Egypt. ... Al Fayyum is one of the governorates of Egypt located in the centre of the country. ... The term Hellenistic (established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen) in the history of the ancient world is used to refer to the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance... Motto: Senatus Populusque Romanus (SPQR) The Roman Empire at its greatest extent, c. ...

Most of the portraits depict the deceased at a relatively young age, and many show children. According to Walker (2000), "CAT scans of all the complete mummies represented [in Walker (2000)] reveal a correspondence of age and, in suitable cases, sex between mummy and image." Walker concludes that the age distribution reflects the low life expectancy at the time. The wax portraits were completed during the life of the individual and displayed in their home, this custom belonged to the traditions of Greek art.^[10] After the person was deceased, the portrait panel was placed over the mummified individuals face. CT apparatus in a hospital Computed axial tomography (CAT), computer-assisted tomography, computed tomography, CT, or body section roentgenography is the process of using digital processing to generate a three-dimensional image of the internals of an object from a large series of two-dimensional X-ray images taken around... Greece has a rich and varied artistic history, spanning some 4000 years and beginning in the Minoan prehistorical civilization, giving birth to Western classical art in the ancient period (and developing this during the Hellenistic Period), to taking in the influences of the East and the new religion of Christianity...

Together with the surviving frescoes and objects from Pompeii and Herculaneum, and tomb frescoes in Macedonia, they are the best preserved paintings from ancient times and are renowned for their remarkable naturalistim. 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. Pompeii is a ruined Roman city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. ... Herculaneum (in modern Italian Ercolano) was an ancient Roman town, located in the territory of the current commune of Ercolano. ... Naturalism in art refers to the depiction of realistic objects in a natural setting. ...

Many musueums around the world have fine examples of Fayum 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. The centre of the museum was redeveloped in 2000 to become the Great Court, surrounding the original Reading Room. ... The main hall of The Royal Museum of Scotland The Royal Museum of Scotland is a museum on Chambers Street, in Edinburgh, Scotland. ... Metropolitan Museum of Art New York Elevation The Metropolitan Museum of Art, often referred to simply as The Met, is one of the worlds largest and most important art museums. ... NY redirects here. ... This article is about the museum: for building history, see Palais du Louvre, for higher education, see École du Louvre. ... City flag City coat of arms Motto: Fluctuat nec mergitur (Latin: Tossed by the waves, she does not sink) Paris Eiffel tower as seen from the esplanade du Trocadéro. ...

Notes

See also

• Gallery of Fayum mummy portraits
• Al Fayyum

Al Fayyum or El Faiyûm (Arabic: الفيوم ) is the capital of Al Fayyum Governorate, Egypt. ...

References

• Walker, Susan (Ed.): Ancient Faces. Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt. New York, 2000. ISBN 0-415-92744-7.

External links

• Proportion and personality in the Fayum Portraits, A.J.N.W Prag, November 2002

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Fayum mummy portraits