Mummy Portrait of a Bearded Man

The funerary portrait of this Romano-Egyptian bearded man is broken on both sides; the top and bottom edges are original. Portraits such as this were placed into funerary shrouds over the faces of the dead as part of the burial process. It was painted in encaustic (wax) pigment on a cedar of Lebanon wood panel; an import to Egypt, this type of wood was used in the construction of elite funerary and devotional equipment. Though in relatively poor condition, the portrait retains its masterful technique. The man is clothed in the traditional white funerary tunic; a tiny bit of purple pigment perhaps from a clavus (woven stripe) remains at the far right of the broken panel. To suggest the interplay of light and shadow the artist applied white highlights against darker pigments across the neck and down the bridge of the nose. This manner of application lends a sense of three-dimensionality and movement to the slight three-quarter angle of the head. The background is an even greyish white; it has been applied over a carbon black ground covering the surface of the wood. Pigments used include lead white mixed with Egyptian Blue for the tunic (Egyptian Blue also appears in the background), copper mineral green in the olive spray, hematite for the rose petals, and iron oxides providing the reds, yellows, and browns.

Fragments of the original linen shroud remain attached to the panel by resin. Carbon-14 results in date of 794 - 827 B.C. for the wood and 670-710 B.C. for the textile. However, the style of the portrait (including the man’s close-cropped hair) accords with a later Severan (A.D. 193-235) date. This chronological inconsistency may have resulted from the wood having been removed from an earlier tomb and reused centuries later. The reuse of rare and costly materials is not uncommon in Roman Egypt, where wood – especially cedar of Lebanon – was highly valued. The bottom edge of the panel is finished with a border of pink rose petals bisected by an olive spray, both funerary emblems seen held by the deceased in other portraits, such as,  79.AP.142.