Portrait of a Mummified Young Woman

Painting—on walls, linen hangings, and wood panels—was a prized art form in ancient Greece and Rome, but few examples survive. In Egypt, however, paintings have sometimes been preserved in dry desert tombs, such as this naturalistic portrait of a candid, plump, and middle-aged woman dressed in her best. Greeks and Romans who lived in Egypt after it became a Roman province adapted the ancient Egyptian custom of mummy portraits. The textured lower edge may indicate where a frame was removed when this family portrait was inserted in mummy wrappings. The earliest Roman mummy portraits were painted about 50 CE, but the practice ended in 392 when the Christian emperor Theodosius outlawed mummification.