The Mysterious Fayum Portraits: Faces From Ancient Egypt

New York: H.N. Abrams, 1995. First US ed. Folio in brown full-color pictorial jacket; 247 pages: illustrations (chiefly color), maps; 33 cm. Printed on coated stock Fine in fine jacket. . Hardcover. ISBN: 9780810933316, 0810933314

A lovely copy of this intriguing work. Exquisite portraiture. "In the first three centuries A.D., in a fertile district of Roman Egypt called the Fayum, a diverse community of Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Syrians, Libyans, Nubians, and Jews flourished. These people, and many of their contemporaries throughout the Nile Valley, embalmed the bodies of their dead and then placed over the faces portraits painted on wooden panels or linen. These paintings, today known as Fayum, or mummy, portraits, were created to preserve the memory of each individual. The Fayum portraits are by far the most important body of portraiture to have survived antiquity. Reproduced in this arresting book are some 180 of the finest of the more than 1,000 extant images - of men, women, and children, young and old, plain and beautiful - all of whom seem uncannily alive. A few of these faces have become familiar to scholars and museum-goers, but as a whole they have been neglected by art historians and will be new to most readers."—Publisher. // Contents: Graeco-Roman Egypt. The portraits. The find-sites. Commentaries on the portraits. // Egypt, Égypte Antiquités, Égypte Antiquités romaines, Fajoemportretten, Funerailles Rites et ceremonies antique Égypte, Momies Égypte, Mummies, Mummies Egypt, Mummy portraits, Mummy portraits Egypt, Portraits antiques Égypte, Portraits du Fayoum, Portraits du Fayoum Égypte, Portraits romains Égypte, Portraits, Ancient, Portraits, Ancient Egypt, Portraits, Roman, Portraits, Roman Egypt, mummy portraits, Additional Physical Form Entry:, Online version:, Mysterious Fayum portraits., Doxiadis, Euphrosyne.// **Heavy item. Additional international shipping fees may be needed. Please inquire**