Fayum Mummy Portrait

Fayum mummy portraits are panel paintings attached to Egyptian mummies during the Roman period (1st-3rd centuries AD). Painted in encaustic (hot wax pigment) or tempera on wood, they show individuals with startlingly lifelike faces: large dark eyes, individual hairstyles, jewelry, and clothing fashionable in the Roman Empire.

These portraits were produced in the Fayum oasis region of Egypt, where Greek, Roman, and Egyptian cultures blended. The subjects were likely middle-class Romans living in Egypt. They commissioned the portraits during their lifetimes, then had them placed over the mummy's face at death. It's an extraordinary fusion of Roman portraiture and Egyptian burial customs.

About 900 Fayum portraits survive, scattered across museums worldwide including the British Museum, the Met, and the Petrie Museum. They're the earliest surviving examples of Western portrait painting and offer an uncanny window into faces from nearly two thousand years ago.