Egyptian mummy portraits show antiquity's piercing gaze in new Rome show
Originally published by Citizen Digital — Read the original article →
An elegant woman gazes out from her portrait with expressive eyes, a gilded wreath worn in her hair and a gentle, questioning look on her face.
She is one of the 2,000-year-old “Faces of Fayum”, startlingly realistic funerary — or mummy — portraits painted after Egypt became part of the Roman empire.
The fragile portraits dating from the first to third centuries AD — painted on thin wooden panels and designed to be placed over the face of mummies — will go on display in Rome in what organisers hail as a “milestone” collaboration between Italy and Egypt.
