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On the Dating of the Fayum Portraits

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

C. C. Edgar
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Extract

When the mummy-portraits from Rubayyat and Hawara were first brought to Europe, amid the general interest which they aroused there was a wide diversity of opinion as to their age. Georg Ebers, who had an enthusiastic admiration for them, tried hard to prove that the series began in the second century B.C. and that the best specimens belonged to the Ptolemaic period. Th. Schreiber may be mentioned as another distinguished authority who took the same view. On the other hand many archaeologists maintained that the portraits were all Roman work, dating for the most part from the second century A.D. Mr. Petrie in particular brought forward definite evidence to show that they range from about 130 A.D. to about 250 A.D., and he also divided them into successive groups. There is still much uncertainty on the subject, as I have had occasion to notice of late. To those who are in doubt about it the following brief paper, which is based on a study of the Cairo collection, may be of some little help. I regret that I do not know much of the material in Europe at first hand.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 25 , November 1905 , pp. 225 - 233
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1905

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References

1 Ebers, Hellenistische Porträts aus dem Fajjum.

2 Baedeker's Egypt: introductory chapter on Alexandrian art.

3 Hawara, Biahmu, and Arsinoe.

4 The numbers and plates cited below are those of the catalogue, which will shortly be published.

5 For good individual specimens see Musée Égyptien, vol. i. Pl. XXXII.; Recueil de Travaux, vol. 17, Pl. III.; Lady Meux Collection, Pls. XXVII, and XXVII. A; Burlington Fine Arts Exh., 1895, Pl. XI.; Annales du Musée Guimet, xxvi., Pls. XXI.–XXIV.; Arch. Anz. 1898, p. 55 ff. (where they are correctly dated). The Graf collection is well known. There is also a fine series in Cairo.

6 For an example of the latest style see Annales du Musée Guimet, vol. xxx. 3, p. 152. An interesting detail may be pointed out on these late heads. The shading on the cheeks and chin is rendered by large discs of a darker red than the rest of the face—exactly the same method as was used by the ancient Egyptian artists in the tomb of the wife of Ramses II.

7 Recueil de Travaux, vol. 17, p. 111 (Bissing).

8 Budge, , Lady Meux Collection, p. 355Google Scholar; Guide to 1st and 2nd Eg. Rooms, p. 79.

9 In Aegyptiaca, p. 104, C. Schmidt says that all the plaster masks come from Tunah, but in reality Tunah is only one of the various sites where they have been found.

10 Eg. Expl. Fund Report, 1902–3, p. 2.

11 Guide to Cairo Museum, 1903, pp. 347–348. The inscription was seen by M. Grébaut but was not acquired by the Museum. On p. 195 of the same Guide it is said by mistake that some of the painted portraits were found at Dimeh with an inscription of the reign of Claudius: what was really found with it was a group of portrait-statuettes (Guide, p. 352).

12 As is acknowledged by Ebers, p. 10.

13 It is sometimes said that none is known to be earlier than the 2nd century (Zeitschrift für Aeg. Sprache, xxxii, p. 36). But Bouriant mentions one from Sohag dated to the 1st year of Vespasian, (Recueil, 1889, p. 143)Google Scholar.

14 At Akhmin Schmidt, C. found a grave containing both tickets and portraits, the latter of inferior style, Zeitschrift, xxxiv. pp. 80–81Google Scholar. See also Arch. Anz., 1889, p. 2.

15 I do not mean that as a matter of fact they are not for the most part contemporary.

16 Εὐψύχєι is the ordinary word of farewell on the funeral inscriptions of Roman Egypt, though the older χαῖρє is also found.

17 Arch. Anz. i. p. 6.

18 Examples of both types reproduced in Hawara, Pl. IX.

19 This idea is repeated by Milne, , Hist. of Eg. p. 56Google Scholar, and Schmidt, C., Aegyptiaca, p. 105Google Scholar. See also Archaeologia liv. p. 363.

20 Found by H. Brugsch in 1892. A lead seal from the same mummy is published in Milne, , Grk. Inscr. p. 132Google Scholar, No. 33017.

21 Waved to each side with a bunch of curls, above each temple and a fringe of tiny round ringlets round the forehead. See Bernoulli's, remarks on this point, Röm. Iconographie, vol. ii. 2, p. 180Google Scholar.

22 I have not seen a sufficient number of them to venture an opinion as to how long a period they cover.

23 Ebers, p. 9; Petrie, , Hawara, p. 17Google Scholar.

24 Heydemann, , Sitzungsbericht der Kgl. Sächs. Ges. der Wissensch. 1888, p. 308Google Scholar. I do not know this article except at second hand, from the references to it in other writers.

25 Cf. Schreiber, , Bildniss Alexanders, p. 137Google Scholar. For the Ptolemaic, tombstones see Ath. Mitt. xxvi. p. 280Google Scholar ff.

26 E.g. Recueil, vol. 18, p. 140 (Bissing). See also the Ptolemaic anthropoid coffin in Fayum Towns, Pl. XI. (b), 19.

27 Hawara, p. 16; also on the Middle Egypt masks, e.g. Cairo, No. 33162, Pl. XXIII.: in some such cases, however, what is represented is probably the stubbly chin of a man who did not shave every day.

28 Cairo, No. 33252, Pl. XL. is an excellent example. The same type occurs on Antonine grave-reliefs, v. Milne, Grk. Inscr. Pl. VIII. No. 9250. It is different from the affectedly disordered hair on certain Hellenistic coin-portraits.

29 E.g. Hawara, Pl. X. 10; Cairo, No. 33255, Pl. XLI. (= No. 1 on Pl. XIII.).

30 Cairo, No. 33261, Pl. XLII.

31 E.g. Graf No. 8; Hawara, Pl. X. No. 12; Cairo 33223 and 33237 (= Pl. XIII. 3). Ebers (p. 64) compares the coiffures ou certain old Egyptian and Cypriote heads, but neglects the Roman analogy which is much more obvious and striking.

32 E.g. Cairo No. 33181, Pl. XXV. I have seen others in the dealers' shops.

33 Guide 1903, p. 356. There are several parallels among the plaster masks.

34 See Monaco, Musée National, Pl. CXI. Schreiber, , Alex. Toreutik, p. 305Google Scholar. The general type, a cross-bar with three pendants, is of course quite early.

35 An article by Folnesics on this subject, which I have not had an opportunity of reading, is mentioned by Wickhoff, , Roman Art, p. 160Google Scholar. Folnesics, as I learn from this reference, has shown that the gold ornaments of the women belong to the age of Septimius Severas. I presume he does not mean all of them.

36 I do not refer to figures like Zeitschrift für Aeg. Sprache, vol. 41, p. 10, Fig. 8, nor do I include the late Deir el-Bahari type.

37 Similarly some of the most Greek in style of the grave-reliefs from the Delta cemeteries belong to the latter half of the second century: the order of development is not described correctly in my catalogue of the Cairo sculpture, p. xiv.

38 Hawara, p. 17; Cairo Nos. 33214, 33268; Berlin catalogue, p. 351.

39 Even when the head is painted on an inserted panel, e.g. Cairo No. 33217.

40 E.g. Cairo No. 33282, Pl. XLVIII. For other examples from various periods see Price, Hilton Catalogue, No. 49, Annales du Mus. Guimet xxx. 2Google Scholar, Pl. I.

41 An interesting panel found by Grenfell and Hunt in the Fayum has memoranda on the back concerning the features of the person to be portrayed (somewhere in the Cairo Museum; Journal d'entrée, No. 34253). In many cases the paintings are no doubt far from being faithful likenesses, though they do not degenerate into conventional types as the masks tend to do.

42 Roman Art, p. 160.

43 For information about Ptolemaic cemeteries in the Fayum see especially Grenfell, , Hunt, , Hogarth, , Fayum Towns, and B.C.H. xxv. p. 380Google Scholar ff.

44 Guide 1903, p. 364.

45 Graf, Nos. 7 and 60. The latter he says represents a man at least 20 years old. But there is a portrait in Cairo of exactly the same type on a well-preserved mummy, the length of which, including the wrappings, is little more than 1 metre (No. 33227, Pl. XXXV)! No. 7 too is clearly not an adult. All the heads that I know of with this bunch at the side are simply portraits of children. In one case a girl wears it on the left side (Cairo, No. 33216).

46 Nos. 4, 5, 6, 22. No. 5 wears the belt over the left shoulder: see also Burlington Fine Arts Exhibition 1895, Pl. 9.

47 See for instance the article balteus in Daremberg and Saglio.

48 Purple drapery is much rarer on the plaster busts. Probably it was a convention among the painters, like the grey background. The differences in the depth of the purple are largely the effect of different light and shade.

49 E.g. Cairo No. 33155.

50 This is true even of the four portraits selected by Ebers. No. 6 for instance is clearly an Antonine work.