While the ancient Egyptians held strong their beliefs in afterlife for millennia , their burial habits evolved from using mastabas, then pyramids then to the Valley of the Kings’ tombs and during the first to third centuries AD they used necropolises with mummies painted portraits on wood covering their faces.
These are called the Fayum portraits. About 900 mummies were found across Egypt but most were found in the Fayum Basin. Fayum mummy portraits are a type of naturalistic painted portrait on wooden boards attached to upper class mummies from Roman Egypt. These Fayum portraits are amazing because they seem very vivid as they really look at you. They are amazing because they seem very vivid as they really look at you. Most of them are very young and some raised the question of if they were painted during their life in preparation for their future.
Scholars did CT scans on these mummies, and they established they did die young. While some may say these belong to the Greeks, scholars agreed they belonged to the ancient Egyptians most likely and also Greeks were worshiping Serapis or even Christ at the time and they did not use mummification. Therefore, the Fayum portraits are giving valuable info about the ancient Egyptians. And
Further reading and suggested videos:
Fayum mummy portraits: object biography and museum display – D-Scholarship@Pitt
Newly Discovered Mummy Portraits from the Necropolis of Ancient Philadelphia – Fayum
بورتريهات لمومياء مُكْتَشَفَة حديثًا في جبانة فيلادلفيا القديمة – الفيوم
Basem Gehad, Lorelei H. Corcoran, Mahmoud Ibrahim, Ahmed Hammad, Mohamed Samah, Abd Allah Abdo and Omar Fekry:
Fayum Mummy Portraits (Image Gallery) p. 2 – World History Encyclopedia
10 Facts about the Faiyum Mummy Portraits — Google Arts & Culture
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