More than 1,000 mummy portraits, painted on wood panels or cloth shrouds between the first and third centuries a.d., are in museums today. In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, archaeologists unearthed scores of these portraits, primarily at cemeteries in and around the Fayum region of Lower Egypt. Excavators often removed the panels or shrouds from the mummies, discarded the bodies, and sold the portraits to institutions throughout Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As a result, scholars have almost exclusively studied the portraits as works of art divorced from their archaeological and funerary contexts. They have focused their efforts on researching stylistic elements and establishing the identities and ethnicities of the deceased, whose names and biographies rarely survive. Few researchers have investigated how the paintings were made.
Nearly a decade ago, J. Paul Getty Museum antiquities conservator Marie Svoboda launched a project that would use materials science to study mummy portraits in collections around the world. “Because the panels are so well preserved, there is so much evidence of materials still present on them,” says Svoboda. “I’m interested in understanding the portraits in terms of ancient working practices.” To date, she has enlisted colleagues from 49 international institutions to collaborate on a project called APPEAR (Ancient Panel Paintings: Examination, Analysis, and Research).
A painting of a woman on lime wood is one of the mummy portraits being studied by researchers using special camera filters under different light wavelengths (left to right: visible, ultraviolet, and infrared) to identify pigments and binding agents.
Esta historia es de la edición January/February 2022 de Archaeology.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición January/February 2022 de Archaeology.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Digs & Discoveries - A Friend For Hercules - Archaeologists discovered a finely carved head depicting Apollo, god of the sun, music, and poetry.
While digging at the crossroads of the two main streets in the ancient city of Philippi in northern Greece, archaeologists discovered a finely carved head depicting Apollo, god of the sun, music, and poetry.
Digs & Discoveries - A Fortress Sanctuary - A sprawling 2,000-year-old fortress in the Zagros Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan appears to have included a sanctuary dedicated to the ancient Persian water goddess Anahita.
A sprawling 2,000-year-old fortress in the Zagros Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan appears to have included a sanctuary dedicated to the ancient Persian water goddess Anahita.
Like Cats And Dogs – Archeologist fund the skeleton of a male Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), a notoriously shy creature.
Оn the periphery of Zamárdi, an ancient lakeshore settlement in west-central Hungary, archaeologists uncovered a nearly five-foot-deep beehive-shaped pit with the skeletons of four adult dogs buried in successive shallow layers.
A Dynasty Born In Fire- How an upstart Maya king forged a new social order amid chaos
At the beginning of the Terminal Classic period (ca. A.D. 810-1000), many of the great kingdoms of the southern Maya lowlands-among them Tikal, Palenque, and Calakmul-were being abandoned or collapsing. For many years, scholars have assumed that most, if not all, the other kingdoms across the Maya world must have also been in steep decline.
Medical Malfeasance - Archaeologists uncovered two coffins during excavations of a nineteenth-century cemetery in Quebec City that provide evidence of the illicit practice of diverting corpses for the study of human anatomy.
Archaeologists uncovered two coffins during excavations of a nineteenth-century cemetery in Quebec City that provide evidence of the illicit practice of diverting corpses for the study of human anatomy. Starting in 1847, medical students were required to have practical experience studying human anatomy, but legal options to procure cadavers were limited
RISE AND FALL OF TIWANAKU
New dating techniques are unraveling the mystery of a sacred Andean city
Making a Roman Emperor
A newly discovered monumental arch in Serbia reveals a family's rise to power in the late second century A.D.
The Assyrian Renaissance
Archaeologists return to Nineveh in northern Iraq, one of the ancient world's grandest imperial capitals
Java's Megalithic Mountain
Across the Indonesian archipelago, people raised immense stones to honor their ancestors
THE SONG IN THE STONE
Located in a desert gorge in southern Peru, Toro Muerto is one of the richest rock art sites in South America. It includes at least 2,600 boulders bearing petroglyphs, many featuring figures known as danzantes who appear to be dancing.
