See gorgeous ancient Egyptian 'mummy portraits' from nearly 2 millennia ago
These ancient 'mummy portraits' provide a window into ancient Egyptian life and culture.
In the early first millennium, many mummies in Egypt were affixed with lifelike portraits showcasing the deceased's once-vivid eyes, styled hair and elaborate jewelry. Over the past few centuries, archaeologists have unearthed more than 1,000 of these mummy paintings, largely from the city of Fayum, earning them the name "Fayum portraits."
These well-preserved, mesmerizing portraits still captivate, prompting Allard Pierson, a museum in Amsterdam, to feature nearly 40 Fayum portraits in its exhibit "Face to Face: The People Behind Mummy Portraits," which opened Oct. 6 and runs through Feb. 25, 2024.
The portraits, created during Egypt's Roman period (30 B.C. to A.D. 395), often depict individuals with European heritage, who moved to the area following Alexander the Great's rule, the subsequent Ptolemaic dynasty (305 to 30 B.C.) led by one of his generals and the Roman period, when the empire made Egypt into a province.
The portraits were often painted on wooden panels with the two upper corners cut off so they could be easily inserted into the mummy bandages, over the face of the mummified body, Ben van den Bercken, curator of the Collection Ancient Egypt and Sudan at Allard Pierson, told Live Science.
Below are 12 of the portraits, each revealing hints about the deceased and their culture.
1. Portrait of Ammonius
In the restored "Portrait of 'Ammonius,'" painted on linen sometime between A.D. 225 and 250, a young man holds a chalice in one hand and a flower bouquet in the other. The artist gave Ammonius several distinctive features, including large lips, prominent ears, eye bags and strangely curved fingers, according to the book "Mummy Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum" (Oxford University Press, 1982).
2. Pearl earrings
This portrait, painted between A.D. 150 and 200 on wood, shows a young woman with brown doe eyes, a slender nose and thick eyebrows. Pearls, like the ones she wears, are one of the "most ubiquitous" types of earrings in the Fayum portraits, van den Bercken said. Jewelry and hairstyles can help researchers date the portraits, he noted. For instance, women's hairdos could "be very elaborate" and often reflected fashions and trends from Rome itself, "mainly [from] the empress," he said.
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However, it's always a question how long it took the fashions of Rome to reach Egypt. In some cases, "something fashionable in Egypt might have already gone out of fashion in Rome itself," van den Bercken said.
3. Bearded man
In this portrait, painted on wood sometime between A.D. 175 and 225, we see a curly-haired, bearded man clad in white. The man's beard may mimic the facial hair of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (reign 161 to 180), who also sported a beard.
4. Elegant jewelry
This portrait, painted on wood sometime between A.D. 175 and 200, shows a dark-haired woman wearing a matching necklace and earrings. However, as in other Fayum portraits, it's unclear if it portrays the deceased when they were younger or around the time of death.
In some cases, the portraits were fairly accurate, according to a 2020 study in the journal PLOS One. A team took a CT (computed tomography) scan of a young boy's mummy from Roman Egypt, digitally reconstructed his face and then compared the reconstruction with his portrait. According to an analysis, the portrait made the child look younger than his 3 or 4 years but was otherwise spot-on.
5. Vivid eyes
This male portrait, painted circa A.D. 250 on limewood, was purchased in the early 1800s by Henry Salt, the British vice-consul in Egypt, making it one of the earliest Fayum portraits recovered in the modern age, according to "Mummy Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum."
The earliest record of a Fayum portrait being collected dates to 1615, when a group of the paintings was brought from Saqqara, Egypt, to Europe by the Roman nobleman Pietro della Valle.
6. Girl with gold wreath
In this portrait, painted on wood between A.D. 120 and 130, we see a young girl wearing a pearl necklace and a golden wreath in her hair. "This wreath is an indication that she 'overcame' death," van den Bercken said.
7. Man with gold wreath
Women weren't the only ones painted with gold wreaths. In this portrait, painted on wood sometime between A.D. 150 and 200, we see a bearded man sporting his own gold laurels.
8. Realistic portraiture
This portrait, painted circa A.D. 150, shows a man clothed in white and wearing a gold wreath. The Fayum portraits' compelling images inspired artists painting icons in the late Byzantine Empire, as well as artists in the late 19th and 20th centuries, according to Allard Pierson. Today, this style is seen as one of the earliest known examples of realistic painted portraiture.
9. Curly-haired man
This man's beard helped researchers date his portrait to the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Like others with portraits, the man painted here may have had European roots. Many Greeks and Romans lived in Egypt, first during the Ptolemaic dynasty, which started when one of Alexander the Great's generals took over the region, and later when Rome made Egypt into a province following the death of Cleopatra VII.
10. Eyes and eyelashes
This portrait, painted on wood between A.D. 300 and 400, shows a woman wearing pearl earrings. "A lot of detail has been put in the composition of eyes and eyelashes," van den Bercken said. A few clues hint that the deceased were upper-middle class or elite, including that many wore ornate jewelry in these portraits. In addition, individuals or their families had to pay an artist for the portrait. "They were not easy to make, not cheap to make resource-wise," van den Bercken said. "The people who ordered them must have had some financial means to do this."
11. Fancy necklace
This woman's portrait was painted sometime between A.D. 160 and 190. The majority of known Fayum portraits were found in the 1800s, but in 2022, archaeologists announced that they had discovered more at a cemetery in the ancient city of Philadelphia in Egypt.
12. Bright-eyed woman
This portrait, painted on wood between A.D. 170 and 200, was found in Egypt in the 1880s, according to "Mummy Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum." The woman wears pearl earrings, a necklace, a hot-pink tunic and black clavi, or vertical strips of ornamentation. Her curly hair is drawn into a bun.
Laura is the archaeology and Life's Little Mysteries editor at Live Science. She also reports on general science, including paleontology. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Scholastic, Popular Science and Spectrum, a site on autism research. She has won multiple awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association for her reporting at a weekly newspaper near Seattle. Laura holds a bachelor's degree in English literature and psychology from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in science writing from NYU.
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Kevin M What a blow to the so-called afrocentrists. Even reconstructions of older mummies like Ramses II and his son, show that they were not subsaharan African types. Ramses II (who had the pyramid of Giza constructed) had a long hooked nose and wavy red hair. It's the same story with the ancient Jews, while they weren't Europeans, neither did they resemble subsaharan Africans; they were Middle Easterners. If the Bible is to be believed, Abraham was from Iraq.Reply -
MuniMula
Recent advances in genetics studies have shown that there was no sub-saharan genes until the Islamic invasion in the 700's. Now there is around 8 percent sub-saharan genes.Kevin M said:What a blow to the so-called afrocentrists. Even reconstructions of older mummies like Ramses II and his son, show that they were not subsaharan African types. Ramses II (who had the pyramid of Giza constructed) had a long hooked nose and wavy red hair. It's the same story with the ancient Jews, while they weren't Europeans, neither did they resemble subsaharan Africans; they were Middle Easterners. If the Bible is to be believed, Abraham was from Iraq. -
Kevin M
None whatsoever? That's difficult to believe, since the Nubians conquered and ruled Egypt from 747 - 646 BC. Surely there must've been some mixing. Another thing that makes me wonder are the statues of Ramses II, they depict him with a round face and flared nostrils, like a subsaharan, yet we know that this isn't the case. It makes me think that the Egyptian commoners were more subsaharan looking, but were secretly ruled by Middle Easterners. This wouldn't have been too difficult to pull off back then.MuniMula said:Recent advances in genetics studies have shown that there was no sub-saharan genes until the Islamic invasion in the 700's. Now there is around 8 percent sub-saharan genes. -
MuniMula
I was surprised as well, but the article stated that even the researchers were surprised, as well, with so many conquering armies coming and going. But that was their findings. https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/22/health/ancient-egypt-mummy-dna-genome-heritage/index.htmlKevin M said:None whatsoever? That's difficult to believe, since the Nubians conquered and ruled Egypt from 747 - 646 BC. Surely there must've been some mixing. Another thing that makes me wonder are the statues of Ramses II, they depict him with a round face and flared nostrils, like a subsaharan, yet we know that this isn't the case. It makes me think that the Egyptian commoners were more subsaharan looking, but were secretly ruled by Middle Easterners. This wouldn't have been too difficult to pull off back then. -
NopeNotToday
The dna report is limited. If you believe a civilization on the continent of Africa had no native influence (dna or culturally) then I have Unicorn Meat to sell to you:Kevin M said:None whatsoever? That's difficult to believe, since the Nubians conquered and ruled Egypt from 747 - 646 BC. Surely there must've been some mixing. Another thing that makes me wonder are the statues of Ramses II, they depict him with a round face and flared nostrils, like a subsaharan, yet we know that this isn't the case. It makes me think that the Egyptian commoners were more subsaharan looking, but were secretly ruled by Middle Easterners. This wouldn't have been too difficult to pull off back then.
One limitation according to their report, “all our genetic data were obtained from a single site in Middle Egypt and may not be representative for all of ancient Egypt.” In southern Egypt they say, the genetic makeup of the people may have been different, being closer to the interior of the continent.
SURPRISING SCIENCE (source)
Researchers in future want to determine exactly when sub-Saharan African genes seeped into the Egyptian genome and why. They’ll also want to know where ancient Egyptians themselves came from. To do so, they’ll have to identify older DNA from, as Krause said, “Back further in time, in prehistory.” -
NopeNotToday @ topic yes, those people depicted were not Ancient Egyptians. Those are Fayum Protraits. Those are Roman peoples indeed.Reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fayum_mummy_portraits -
MuniMula
"published in the journal Nature Communications. The influx of sub-Saharan genes only occurred within the last 1,500 years. This could be attributed to the trans-Saharan slave trade or just from regular, long distance trade between the two regions. Improved mobility on the Nile during this period increased trade with the interior, researchers claim." https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/were-the-ancient-egyptians-black-or-white-scientists-now-know/#:~:text=The%20influx%20of%20sub%2DSaharan,with%20the%20interior%2C%20researchers%20claim.NopeNotToday said:The dna report is limited. If you believe a civilization on the continent of Africa had no native influence (dna or culturally) then I have Unicorn Meat to sell to you:
SURPRISING SCIENCE (source) -
Kevin M MuniMula said:I was surprised as well, but the article stated that even the researchers were surprised, as well, with so many conquering armies coming and going. But that was their findings.NopeNotToday said:@ topic yes, those people depicted were not Ancient Egyptians. Those are Fayum Protraits. Those are Roman peoples indeed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fayum_mummy_portraitsNopeNotToday said:@ topic yes, those people depicted were not Ancient Egyptians. Those are Fayum Protraits. Those are Roman peoples indeed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fayum_mummy_portraits
Whatever those portraits depict, the ancient Egyptian rulers were certainly not subsaharan. We know because we have the mummies. Take Ramses II, here's his mummy along with some computer reconstructions. Now I'm not saying that the Egyptians had no subsaharan DNA, as mummies were not commoners. We only know what the Egyptian rulers looked like. Ramses II and his son definitely look like they came from north of Egypt somewhere, as so do most of the mummies we've discovered.NopeNotToday said: -
MuniMula
I'm not talking about those portraits. I'm talking about the latest genome studies.NopeNotToday said:@ topic yes, those people depicted were not Ancient Egyptians. Those are Fayum Protraits. Those are Roman peoples indeed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fayum_mummy_portraits -
Dadreamz
Only a clown would believe anything that wyt people say especially when they can easily do thing and change things to fit their own narrative. I remember watching wyt people scrub pictures in Egypt of BLK ppl lighting their skin to makes them look wyt. Again only a clown would believe these lies.Kevin M said:What a blow to the so-called afrocentrists. Even reconstructions of older mummies like Ramses II and his son, show that they were not subsaharan African types. Ramses II (who had the pyramid of Giza constructed) had a long hooked nose and wavy red hair. It's the same story with the ancient Jews, while they weren't Europeans, neither did they resemble subsaharan Africans; they were Middle Easterners. If the Bible is to be believed, Abraham was from Iraq.