Fayum Mummy Portrait
We may never know the name of the young man in the portrait above, but his image came from one of the Fayum Mummy Portraits. There were portraits painted on wooden boards of people from the upper-class who died during the Roman rule of Egypt. These portraits were used to cover the faces of the bodies that had been mummified.
When you see these portraits on the mummies, it’s almost as if they reveal a window into seeing the person behind the wrappings. However, the majority of these portraits have been removed from the mummies they were once attached to. Roughly 900 of these portraits have been recovered, and they’re highly valued among art collectors. Today, they can sell at auction for well over $100,000 each.
