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Mummy portraits or Fayum mummy portraits (also Faiyum mummy portraits) is the modern term for a type of realistic painted portraits on wooden boards attached to mummies from Roman Egypt (funerary mask). They belong to the tradition of panel painting, one of the most highly regarded forms of art in the Classical world. In fact, the Fayum portraits are the only large body of art from that tradition to have survived.
Mummy portraits have been found in all parts of Egypt, but are especially common in the Faiyum Basin, particularly from Hawara and Antinoopolis, hence the common name. "Faiyum Portraits" is generally thought of as a stylistic, rather than a geographic, description. While painted Cartonnage mummy cases date back to pharaonic times, the Faiyum mummy portraits were an innovation dating to the time of the Roman occupation of Egypt.
They date to the Roman period, from the late 1st century BC or the early 1st century AD onwards. It is not clear when their production ended, but recent research suggests the middle of the 3rd century. They are among the largest groups among the very few survivors of the highly prestigious panel painting tradition of the classical world, which was continued into Byzantine and Western traditions in the post-classical world, including the local tradition of Coptic iconography in Egypt.
The portraits were attached to burial mummies at the face, from which almost all have now been detached. They usually depict a single person, showing the head, or head and upper chest, viewed frontally. The background is always monochrome, sometimes with decorative elements. In terms of artistic tradition, the images clearly derive more from Graeco-Roman traditions than Egyptian ones. The population of the Faiyum area was greatly enhanced by a wave of Greek immigrants during the Ptolemaic period, initially by veteran soldiers who settled in the area.
Two groups of portraits can be distinguished by technique: One of encaustic (wax) paintings, the other in tempera. The former are usually of higher quality.
About 900 mummy portraits are known at present. The majority were found in the necropoleis of Faiyum. Due to the hot dry Egyptian climate, the paintings are frequently very well preserved, often retaining their brilliant colours seemingly unfaded by time.
While commonly believed to represent Greek settlers in Egypt, the Faiyum portraits instead reflect the complex synthesis of the predominant Egyptian culture and that of the elite Greek minority in the city. According to Walker, the early Ptolemaic Greek colonists married local women and adopted Egyptian religious beliefs, and by Roman times, their descendants were viewed as Egyptians by the Roman rulers, despite their own self-perception of being Greek. The dental morphology of the Roman-period Faiyum mummies was also compared with that of earlier The dental morphology of the Roman-period Faiyum mummies was also compared with that of earlier Egyptian populations, and was found to be "much more closely akin" to that of ancient Egyptians than to Greeks or other European populations.
Irish JD (2006). "Who were the ancient Egyptians? Dental affinities among Neolithic through postdynastic peoples.". Am J Phys Anthropol 129
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^^Dental studies were taken of the sample population, not of the specific greco-Roman elites who posed for those portraits. Why are you afraid to cite the reference where you got that, which was wikipedia? Susan Walker states specifically that the people of the Fayum at that time concerned with these portraits identified themselves as Greeks.
Also:
quote:these portraits were popular among nineteenth and early twentieth century collectors and this had a tendency to at first isolate them from their funerary contexts. They were studied by classicists and art historians who, basing their conclusions on details in the paintings along, such as hairstyles, jewelry and costume, identified the portraits as being those of Greek or Roman settlers who had adopted Egyptian burial customs.
quote:The Fayum, a flourishing metropolitan community in ancient Egypt, consisted of Greeks, Egyptians, Syrians, Libyans, and others. A significant Greek population had settled in Egypt following its conquest by Alexander, eventually adopting the customs of the Egyptians. This included mummifying their dead. A portrait of the deceased, painted either in the prime of life or after death, was placed over the person's mummy as a memorial.
quote:The ekphora is a Greek rite, and in many respects the portraits reflect an interest in Greek culture. In the Fayum it is likely that the portraits represent members of a group of mercenaries who had fought for Alexander and the early Ptolemies and were granted land after the Fayum had been drained for agricultural use in the early years of ptolemic rule.
Ancient Faces: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt By Susan Walker, PP24..
quote:The mummy, or Fayum, portraits are Egyptian only in that they are associated with essentially Egyptian burial customs. Painted in an encaustic technique, they represent mostly Greek inhabitants of Egypt.
- Britannica (2007)
You Eurocentric loons never stop lying, jeeze..
This is actually more proof that Greeks were mixed. Posts: 4021 | From: Bay Area, CA | Registered: Mar 2007
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^ Indeed, it's funny how the Fayum portraits perfectly represent Greek settlers who intermarried with local Egyptians (Africans).
^ Ironic how many of these look no different from modern day Sicilians. How very 'Somalid' looking of them! LOL
^ This one looks like Barrack Obama if his mother was a Medit European. Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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The descendants of these people still live today in the Delta, most of the Egyptian parliament consist of these type of people, they are very distinct from upper Egyptians. All metropolitans have been in lower Egypt since the fall of dynastic Egypt in particular Greco-Roman and khalifat Egypt.
Posts: 1554 | Registered: Jul 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Sundjata: [QB] ^^Dental studies were taken of the sample population, not of the specific greco-Roman elites who posed for those portraits.
Where do you get that none of the samples from Irish were from the Fayum-mummies?
It still doesn't matter that much since they were not pure Greco/Roman they were mutts. These are first century AD, not 4th century BC.
quote:Why are you afraid to cite the reference where you got that, which was wikipedia? Susan Walker states specifically that the people of the Fayum at that time concerned with these portraits identified themselves as Greeks.
The population was never even a Majority Greek. 25-30% tops All the info I got describing the Egyptian portraits was wikipedia yes. But I posted the study by Irish.
quote:these portraits were popular among nineteenth and early twentieth century collectors and this had a tendency to at first isolate them from their funerary contexts. They were studied by classicists and art historians who, basing their conclusions on details in the paintings along, such as hairstyles, jewelry and costume, identified the portraits as being those of Greek or Roman settlers who had adopted Egyptian burial customs.
just because they identified themselves as Greeks doesn't mean they were ethnically Greek, The Byzantines called themselves Romans when they were really mostly Greek. They were mutts or Hellenized Northern Egyptians
quote:You Eurocentric loons never stop lying, jeeze..
what is there to lie about? All I did was copy and paste
quote:This is actually more proof that Greeks were mixed.
Well lol, I don't think that I could argue that the Greeks that settled Egypt did not mix with Egyptians after generations and generations. The early one's probably were not though.
When talking about "mixed Greeks" I am talking about Greeks from the Greek mainland. Obviously Greek settlers were mixing with Egyptians, Levantine peoples, and Persians to name a few.
anyways bottom line the portraits are of mutts who were probably more Egyptian than Greek at this time, and don't look like this do they? Posts: 143 | From: The United States Of America (sadly) | Registered: Mar 2009
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These portraits certainly do not make people like American patriots case of nordic like Greeks stronger.
Posts: 1554 | Registered: Jul 2006
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quote:Where do you get that none of the samples from Irish were from the Fayum-mummies?
Where do you get that they were?? This is a burden of proof fallacy. We're talking about a select group of people who as demonstrated above, were Greeks!! Thus, anything else you have to say is irrelevant...
Again, all that this worthless thread proves is that ancient Greeks mixed with African people and had no qualms about doing so... You have been exposed yet again trying to slap and paste some nonsense that won't fly under even minimal scrutiny. You are just another dishonest Eurocentrist.
Posts: 4021 | From: Bay Area, CA | Registered: Mar 2007
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This is actually more proof that Greeks were mixed.
NOT the Greeks mixed with Egyptian. Fuchking idiot!!
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ Indeed, it's funny how the Fayum portraits perfectly represent Greek settlers who intermarried with local Egyptians (Africans).
^ This one looks like Barrack Obama if his mother was a Medit European.
Posts: 12143 | From: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable | Registered: Jun 2007
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Always said, in Marc's thread - Who the Fayoum represented is the key to Marc's premise. If the Greeks looked like this. . . .SH!T.
-------------------- Without data you are just another person with an opinion - Deming Posts: 12143 | From: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable | Registered: Jun 2007
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These Euro are so stupid!!?? The believe their own BS. If these are Nordic greeks/mixed with AE. Then what did the AE looked like. Central Africans??
-------------------- Without data you are just another person with an opinion - Deming Posts: 12143 | From: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable | Registered: Jun 2007
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One thing we notice is that the farther back you go in time, the more solely African "Greece" was. And once it was only African. Pictures 20 and 21 show nearly contemporary sculptures of Plato and Socrates as Africa.
Here is one of about five pages that show Greece as totally African before it became mixed:
Mummy portraits or Fayum mummy portraits is the modern term given to a type of realistic painted portraits on wooden boards attached to mummies. They belong to the tradition of panel painting, one of the most highly regarded forms of art in the Classical world. In fact, the Fayum portraits are the only large body of art from that tradition to have survived.
Mummy portraits have been found across Egypt, but are most common in the Fayum Basin, hence the common name. "Fayum Portraits" is generally thought of as a stylistic, rather than a geographic, description. The Fayum mummy portraits were an innovation dating to the Coptic period on time of the Roman occupation of Egypt from the late 1st century BC or the early 1st century AD onwards. This highly prestigious tradition of the classical world was continued into Byzantine and Western traditions in the post-classical world, including the local tradition of Coptic iconography in Egypt and then in the famous Slavic (Russian, Bulgarian) icons.
The portraits covered the faces of bodies that were mummified for burial. Extant examples indicate that they were mounted into the bands of cloth that were used to wrap the bodies. Almost all have now been detached from the mummies. They usually depict a single person, showing the head, or head and upper chest, viewed frontally. In terms of artistic tradition, the images clearly derive more from Greco-Roman traditions than Egyptian ones....
Social status
The patrons of the portraits apparently belonged to the affluent upper class of military personnel, civil servants and religious dignitaries. Not everyone could afford a mummy portrait; many mummies were found without one. Flinders Petrie states that only one or two per cent of the mummies he excavated were embellished with portraits...
It is not clear whether those depicted are of Egyptian, Greek or Roman origin, nor whether the portraits were commonly used by all ethnicities. The name of some of those portrayed are known from inscriptions, they are of Egyptian, Greek and Roman origin. Hairstyles and clothing are always influenced by Roman fashion. Women and children are often depicted wearing valuable ornaments and fine garments, men often wearing specific and elaborate outfits. Greek inscriptions of names are relatively common, sometimes they include professions. It is not known whether such inscriptions always reflect reality, or whether they may state ideal conditions or aspirations rather than true conditions. One single inscription is known to definitely indicate the deceased's profession (a ship owner) correctly. The mummy of a woman named Hermione also included the term Grammatik. For a long time, it was assumed that this indicated that she was a teacher by profession (for this reason, Flinders Petrie donated the portrait to Girton College, Cambridge, the first residential college for women in Britain), but today, it is assumed that the term indicates her level of education. Some portraits of men show sword-belts or even pommels, suggesting that they were members of the Roman military.
¡It should be clear to anyone familiar with ancient Egyptian art, or rather yet Egyptian people that most people in these portraits are clearly a mixture of Egyptian and European!
BEEP BEEP SCREECH KISS CUSS
Posts: 49 | From: auto salvage yard | Registered: Jan 2012
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: I remember one Fayum portrait of a woman who bears a striking resemblance to the African American actress Lisa Bonet
Half "black" and half "white" actress Lisa Bonet.
Not that that matters. Posts: 4226 | From: New Jersey, USA | Registered: Mar 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ Indeed, it's funny how the Fayum portraits perfectly represent Greek settlers who intermarried with local Egyptians (Africans).
[
^ Ironic how many of these look no different from modern day Sicilians. How very 'Somalid' looking of them! LOL
^
They look just like modern peoples of coastal Africa - both Berber and Arab speaking. Just like they should. Posts: 4226 | From: New Jersey, USA | Registered: Mar 2007
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