Encaustic Portrait, Mummy

From card: "Greco-Egyptian [Hellenistic Egyptian]. Face of [bearded male] youth painted in color on board measuring 13-1/2" long and 7-3/4" to 6-7/8" wide. See p. 453 and plate 15 in Casonowicz, S.I. publication 2741, "Collect. Old World Arch. U.S. Nat. Mus.", Smithsonian Institution Annual Report, 1922. (Letter from Dr. K. Parlasca September 29, 1958, of the Archaeologisches Institut, Frankfurt am Main University, Germany, mentions that this portrait is identical to one collected by Theodore Graf about 1890. Cf. Parlasca, Mumienporträts (1966), pp. 198, 245 no. 37, p. 37:2). Exhibit, Hall 26, 1976" NUMBER 37 OF THEODOR GRAF COLL. Such painted portraits on wooden boards were attached to Egyptian mummies from Roman Egypt. Hall 26 exhibit label: This portrait done with pigment mixed with wax, is clearly Greek in style, yet was used as a mummy mask in the Ptolemaic period. From 1978 NMNH slide set caption: "Portrait - painted, encaustic on wood, bust of young man, Greco-Egyptian, Fayum, Necropolis of Rubaiyat."

From NMNH Exhibit Hall "Eternal Life in Ancient Egypt" label for this artifact, 2011: Fayum portrait, 50-200 AD. Painted in a Greek portrait style, this mask comes from the Fayum agricultural region where a mixed Egyptian and Greek population lived for about four centuries.

5 Jun 2025

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