Portrait of ancient woman | Photo: T. Szabó Csaba
Portrait of an ancient woman. The painting was found in a cemetery in the Fayoum oasis (most of it was found in the necropolis in Hawara) and is one of many of this type found in this place. The object is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest (Hungary).
This is the so-called Fayum portrait, i.e. a realistic portrait made of wood, which was placed next to Egyptian mummies from the times of the Romans. It was the so-called blackboard painting, which was extremely popular in ancient times. About 900 such paintings have survived to our times.
It is worth mentioning that after the death of Alexander the Great (323 BCE) and his conquests, a lot of Greeks and Hellenic people came to Egypt and settled in Alexandria and Fayum. Over time, the arriving population adopted the Egyptian customs of mummifying the dead.
