7/27/2019 Roman Portraits in Egypt http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/roman-portraits-in-egypt 1/5 91. Roman Portraits in Egypt. Author(s): W. M. Flinders Petrie Source: Man, Vol. 11 (1911), pp. 145-147 Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2840438 . Accessed: 19/08/2013 17:23 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Man. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 202.41.10.30 on Mon, 19 Aug 2013 17:23:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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Author(s): W. M. Flinders PetrieSource: Man, Vol. 11 (1911), pp. 145-147Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2840438 .
Accessed: 19/08/2013 17:23
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
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Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve
and extend access to Man.
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This content downloaded from 202.41.10.30 on Mon, 19 Aug 2013 17:23:05 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Egypt. With Plate K. Petrie.Roman Portraits in Egypt. By W. M. Flinders Petrie, F.R.S., f4
F.B.A. UIFor our knowledge of the classical civilisation we are dependent upon the pre-
servative climate of Egypt in the case of the more perishable kinds of objects. The
documents, clothing, and portable paintings of the Roman world would be practically
unknown to us had they not been preserved in the sands of a rainless climate. In
1888 the excavations at Hawara on the eastern border of the Fayum, brought to light
a large number of portraits, and last winter I was able to finish the cemetery there,
as the natives had removed much top earth since my previous work. It is hardly
likely that we shall see from any other site more important examples of Roman
portraiture. The Fayum was the most foreign province of Egypt, havinlg been entirely
settled by the Greek troops upon freshly reclaimed land; and the cemetery of Hawara,
six miles from the capital Arsinoe, was the burial place of the richer inhabitants,who were taken so far in order to be near the pyramid of the deified King
Amenemhat III, worshipped there as the founder of the province.
The custom of decorating mummies with gilt stucco covers became much developed
in the Ptolemaic time; the head and foot covers which stood out from the bandages
were carefully modelled and decorated with mythological figures in relief or painted.
The purpose of this elaboration was the growing custom of keeping the mummy in
the atrium of the house, and this seems to have developed under the classical influence
on Egypt, as we find no trace of the idea during the purely Egyptian ages. Possibly
the wax figures of the ancestors which Romans kept in the hall, and for which the
marble statues were substituted, led the Romano-Egyptian to keep the decorated
mummy above ground. This usage of the mummy renders possible the ancient
statement about drawing the mummy round at a feast; for, when once the mummy
was kept in the house, Egyptian ideas of the funeral feast for the benefit of the
mummy would lead to its being brought forward to join in spirit in the family
gathering.
The results of keeping the mummies standing in the half was plainly seen on
those that we find. The stucco has been kicked about at the feet, the head is caked
with dust and dirt, often rained upon, falls have dented in the surface or smashed
the face. Even the little boys at their lessons have scribbled caricatures upon the
feet of their relatives.
About the end of the first century A.D.-the close of the twelve Cesars-there
was a fashion of taking the canvas portrait of the dead which had hung in a frame
on the wall, and putting that over the face of the mummy in place of a conventional
stucco head. These canvas portraits were usually busts, including the shoulders, but
were covered over by the bandaging, or folded back, so as to only show the face, an
evidence that they were painted for a different place and exposure to that upon the
mummy. To these soon succeeded the use of panel portraits pailnted on thin sheets
of wood, much like stout veneer. Such panel portraits were certainly framed for
hanging up, as I found one in an " Oxford " frame with a groove to hold the glass
over it, and a cord by which to hang it up. In every case of those which I could
examine, the panel has been roughly split down at the sides to narrow it, and the
top corners very roughly cut off, in order to reduce it to the size and shape for fittingon to the mummy. This is proof that the panel was not originally prepared for
attachment to the mummy, but was a large picture independently used and afterwards
badly trimmed. This fact is strong evidenlce that the portraits were painted during
life for show in the house like modern portraits, and their preservation upon the
mummy was only a secondary use. The period of th-is fashion seems to have been[ 145 ]
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