Ancient Faces

"When they were first discovered over a century ago, the painted panel and shroud portraits of Roman Egypt were a revelation to scholars and public alike. Even today they constitute the only corpus of coloured images of individuals to survive from classical antiquity. Many of the paintings are of outstanding artistic quality; as a whole, they reflect a range of techniques and styles, often related to specific communities." "Many of the best-known portraits come from the Fayum, but portraits in various media are known from sites in the Nile Valley and along the Mediterranean coast. Here a wide…