Mummy Portraits
The mummy portraits are stunning, with production beginning around 30-40 CE.
Examples include portraits of an unknown woman (c.160-70) and a boy called Eutyches (c.100-150).
The Annual Report of the Director of the National Gallery for 1888 announced the display of three painted wooden panels.
- These panels were almost two thousand years old.
- They were unearthed from Roman-period cemeteries in Hawara, in the Fayum basin in Egypt.
- They had been placed over the faces of mummies and integrated into their wrappings.
Before arriving at the National Gallery they had been shown in the ostentatious Egyptian Hall on Piccadilly.
Author summary: Stunning mummy portraits from ancient Egypt.