The Mysterious Fayum Portraits

A compact edition of this highly acclaimed survey of the Fayum paintings, the enigmatic and compelling funerary portraits created by the inhabitants of Roman Egypt in the first century CE.

This acclaimed survey, now in an updated format with a new foreword by Ahdaf Soueif, offers a richly illustrated account of the history and discovery of astonishing funerary portraits from Greco-Roman Egypt. These remarkable paintings take their name from a district of Roman Egypt, whose inhabitants in the first three centuries CE included Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Syrians, Libyans, Nubians, and Jews. In the Egyptian tradition, they embalmed the bodies of their dead; but then placed a painted portrait over the mummified person, preserving the memory of each individual. Over one thousand…