Yan Haiying Chen Yitao
Mummified portraits unearthed in Egypt are the most precious part of the history of ancient painting because they preserve ancient painting traditions that have been lost in the Greco-Roman mainland. So far, more than 1,000 portraits have been found, both men and women, young and old, and the combination of realistic techniques and symbolic expressions is the product of the combination of ancient Egyptian burial customs and Greco-Roman art styles, and the result of the fusion of different concepts of the afterlife.
Mummified masks first appeared in the Middle Kingdom period (about 2000 BC), mummified portraits were lowered to the Roman period (30 AD), continued to be used until the middle of the third century AD, was used by the Greco-Romans who settled in Egypt to make mummies, and has now been found thousands, from the seaside city of Alamine (Marina el-Alamein) to Aswan in the south, all over Egypt, with the most excavated in the faron region of central Egypt, and its production techniques and artistic styles are very different from Egyptian traditions. The appearance characteristics and costumes of the characters are mostly Greek or Roman, and the decorative patterns are mixed with Egypt and Greco-Roman, including the images of Egyptian gods such as Osiris, Isis, Anubis, etc., as well as the olive laurels and rose ornaments loved by the Greeks, as well as the purple color as a symbol of the superior people in Roman society, and so on. The Greeks and Romans accepted the burial customs of ancient Egypt, but in the process of use they incorporated the colors of Western classical culture, and the two cultures coexisted and coexisted.
As early as the 17th century, mummified portraits were found in Sakkala. In 1615, when the Italian traveler Pietro della Valle visited Egypt, he was guided by the locals to find three mummies with portraits inside a pyramid in Saqqara. In 1887, archaeologists found 300 mummified portraits in Rubayyat, most of which were later bought by the Austrian antique dealer Theodor Graf. Between 1888 and 1910, Flinders Petrie found about 200 portraits in Hawara. From 1897 to 1911, another batch of portraits was unearthed in Antinoopolis, and from 1903 to 1905, another batch was found in Abusir and El-Melek, and since then it has been found everywhere. These thousands of mummified portraits are distributed in several museums.
From mummified masks to portraits
In Pharaonic Egypt, the catacombs where mummies were placed usually had above-ground buildings, similar to ancestral halls or houses, which were placed with furniture, jewelry, daily necessities, etc., in order to create a place similar to the living environment of the deceased, and to continue the ideal life in this world forever. The ancient Egyptians believed that without mummies and burial chambers, the deceased's ba (a type of soul, the life-sustaining force of the deceased) would lose all contact with the earthly world.
The earliest mummified mask appeared around 2000 BC and is not a portrait of the dead, but a symbol of a young face, the appearance of a hieroglyphic symbol of the word "face". It covers the crumpled face of the mummy and expresses the ancient Egyptians' desire to restore their youth after resurrection.
Since the Greeks ruled Egypt, mummified masks have produced great changes in artistic style and production methods: in traditional Egyptian mummified masks, the characters are usually positive, less personalized performance, and more reflect their religious symbolism, while in the mummified masks and portraits of the Greco-Roman period, the characters are usually three-quarters of the side, very realistic and vivid, more expressing the personality of the characters, this change in concept has led to the emergence of new production methods, such as the "wax method", Use the living portrait of the deceased as a mummified portrait, etc.
Many of the mummified masks of the Greco-Roman period were made of linen cloth, which was first soaked in plaster and then molded in a mold; in this way masks could be produced in large quantities. In the Ptolemaic period, masks were usually gilded (which was a costly step), while in Roman times, masks were usually colored. The mask style was traditional and clearly not realistic portraits; hellenistic influences were reflected only in hair and jewelry. In the Roman period, these masks became personalized due to the manual addition of some characteristic details to the mold-making prototypes. But they never became true portraits, but only variants of the original mask form. Such masks were extremely common in central Egypt, often in the form of cast busts, which also had arms (sometimes holding a flower crown or trophy in their hands); and the head was raised as if the deceased were waking up. (Figure 1)
Figure I Plaster Mummy Mask, 140-190 AD, length 58.5 cm, width 27.4 cm, height 30 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art 12.182.46
Subsequently, the practice of painting portraits on bandages on the mummified head appeared. But the practice was never really widespread. The most beautiful examples are two portraits of A.D. from the first century AD: portraits of Aline and her children (figs. 2, 3) and portraits of Hermione, a Greek teacher (fig. 4).
Fig. 2 Portrait of Alina, circa 1st century AD, height: 40 cm, width: 32.5 cm, Egyptian Museum, Berlin, collection no. 11411
Fig. 3 Portrait of Alina's two daughters, Egyptian Museum, Berlin, collection number: 11412 (left), 11413 (right)
Fig. IV Portrait of Hermione, circa 1st century AD, Gordon College, Cambridge
From the middle of the 1st century AD, mummified portraits appeared in large numbers. The idea of such a portrait may be related to the custom of Roman nobles displaying portraits of themselves or their ancestors in the atrium of their homes. In the funeral procession of the Romans, people hold up portraits of the deceased to emphasize the continuation of the blood of the deceased's prominent family, but also to evoke people's remembrance of the deceased. Roman festivals such as Parentalia as well as daily family rituals honor the souls of ancestors. The appearance of mummified portraits is the result of a combination of Egyptian and Roman funerary traditions, as they appeared after Egypt became a Roman province. Mummified masks were originally egyptian concepts, but in style they became more and more Greco-Roman, and when Roman portraits were integrated into Egyptian burial customs, their style and techniques were also Greco-Roman.
The technique of drawing early portraits was called the "wax method", i.e. the pigment used emulsified beeswax. This technique can be painted in multiple layers; when the drawing effect is not satisfactory, it can be repainted on this layer (wax can easily turn into liquid again after heating) (Figure 5). Later, more use of the "tempera painting" technique was used, and a water-soluble adhesive composed mainly of animal glue was mixed into the pigment, which could not be modified once it dried (Fig. 6).
Fig. V Portrait of a Woman, early 2nd century AD, 18 7/8 x 14 3/16 cm, Paul Getty Museum (J. Paul Getty Museum），81.AP.42
Fig. 6 Portrait of a Woman, early 1st century AD, Height: 31 cm, Width: 18.5 cm, British Museum GRA 1890.9-20.1 (Painting 87)
Wax portraits have an "impressionist" effect under the action of light and shadow, and this effect also appears in Pompeii's paintings. Tempera portraits are more akin to line paintings that are rich in color but lack deep effects. Although the portraits do not appear to depict Christians, the works resemble Byzantine portraits in style and in some details, such as the halos on the heads of deities, the T-shaped cross, and the golden background.
The extensive use of green pigments in mummified portraits is related to the introduction of green soil from Europe to Egypt. Most of the green pigments in Egypt during the pharaonic period were copper-based green pigments such as malachite and greenstone, or synthetic, such as the so-called Egyptian green. According to Caroline Roberts' sampling of mummified portraits, the green pigments at this time came mainly from green soil. Thus, during the Greco-Roman period, in addition to the well-known introduction of rose red and red lead to Egypt, there were two major changes: the heavy use of green in the artworks brought about by the introduction of green soil, and the heavy use of blue and yellow mixed colors. In addition, there were more attempts to reconcile colors during this period, such as mixing, layering, and other aspects of practice.
Many Greek elements are included in the mummified portraits. The costumes of the figures in the painting and the objects held in their hands can reflect the Greek influence. One example of this is the rose. The rose is not native to Egypt, but it is easy to grow in Greco-Roman regions, so the pattern of the rose is a new symbol transmitted from the Greco-Roman region. Roses appear several times in mummified portraits, with garlands, corolla, and patterns on jewelry. The rose is a symbol of Aphrodite, the goddess of fertility, in Greece, and its appearance in mummified portraits may be related to the Egyptian god Osiris (Figure VII).
Fig. VII Portrait of a Man holding a bouquet, 220-50 AD, Height: 34 cm, Width 25 cm, Paul Getty Museum (J. Paul Getty Museum），79.AP.142
Roman men tended to have short hair and did not change much, while the hairstyles in Roman female portraits could be seen in the fashion changes of different periods. During the Tiberian period, simple mid-division hairstyles were popular among women, followed by more complex ring-shaped hairstyles, nested braids, and by the late first century, forehead curls became popular. Anthony's time was dominated by small oval nested braids, and in the second half of the second century simple mid-distribution and neck knots appeared. The Septimius-Severus era was characterized by fluffy or neat straight hair, followed by a ring braid coiled over the head, which belonged to the final stage of the mummified portrait and was found only in a few mummified shrouds.
As with hairstyles, as can be seen from statues and busts, the costumes depicted in mummified portraits also followed the popular fashion of the Roman Empire. Both men and women like to wear a thin underwear and then a cape on the outside, draped over the shoulders or wrapped around the body. Men wear almost exclusively white, while women's clothes are usually red or pink, but can also be yellow, white, blue, or purple. The ornamental threads on the costume are generally dark in color, occasionally there will be light red, light green, or gold. On some painted mummies of Antinopolis shrouds, the figure wears long-sleeved loose-sleeved Clavi costumes. So far, however, not a single portrait has been found with an important symbol of Roman citizenship – the Toga robe.
Most of the women who wear jewelry in the portraits include gold chains, gold rings, emeralds, carnelian, garnets, agate or amethyst. This is basically consistent with the types of jewelry commonly found in the Greco-Roman region. Elaborate garlands are also depicted in some portraits, and gemstones are set on gold ornaments. (Figure 8)
Figure VIII, "The Golden Woman" (named after the large amount of gold powder painted on the portrait), 110-130 AD, height 43.7 cm, width 34 cm, Scottish Royal Museum 1951.160
There are three basic shapes of earrings. The first is a circular or teardrop-shaped pendant that was more common in the first century (see Figure II). The second is an S-shaped hook made of gold thread, on which beads of different colors are strung together. The third is a pendant, which has a crossbar with two or three vertical rods hanging from it, usually decorated with a white bead at the bottom of each vertical pole (see figure 5). Other common ornaments include blonde hairpins, often beautifully decorated with pearls, especially in Antinobalpolis.
Second, the face of the "dignitaries"
In the more than a hundred years since the mass excavation of mummified portraits, the focus of academics on them has shifted several times. Before World War II, under the influence of racist ideologies, researchers' interest focused on identifying the racial identity of portrait owners, such as determining which portrait owners were Jewish. Beginning in the 1960s, anthropologists began to argue that it was impossible to judge the ethnic affiliation of portraits alone from the facial features of portraits, while papyrus and historians had shown that many immigrants in the Greco-Roman period intermarried with native Egyptians, and that these immigrants and native nobles who had joined the ruling class usually had two names, one Greek and one Egyptian, and their identity could not be judged by name alone.
In recent years, academics have paid more attention to the social status of the owners of these portraits, as well as their cultural choices. Judging from the gold inlay process of portraits, the use of precious pigments such as purple, and the exquisite processing of mummies, the owners of these portraits were the dignitaries of the society at that time. There are about 20 portraits with short text, mostly in Greek, and several with Egyptian secular script (figure IX). Some of them were Greek teachers, some were wealthy merchants engaged in shipping, and some were retired soldiers. They all had Roman citizenship, which meant they had various privileges such as tax relief and servitude. Judging from the locations of the excavated portraits, they are basically the cities and villages allocated by the Ptolemaic government to live in foreign immigrants and retired foreign hired soldiers, especially in the Fayong area, where a large number of foreigners were resettled, and Egyptians were mobilized throughout the country to live in Fayong to cultivate the land for these immigrants.
Figure IX Portrait of Eirene, 100-120 A.D., with secular hieroglyphs written on the position of her neck, containing the names of her and her parents and the words wishing her eternal life. Stuttgart, State Museum of Württemberg, Ministry of Antiquities 131 (MPSS 2/8)
According to papyrus literature, in 113 AD, the monthly income of the foreman of the water conservancy project was 36 Dramacher, in 114 and 150 AD a guard earned 16 Dramacher per month, and the price of a mummy shroud was 600 Dramacher. The portrait depicts several boys with special hairstyles: the hair is divided in the middle and tied in bunches behind the head. According to Lucian, the author of The Metamorphosis, this hairstyle was the child of the most prominent egyptian family at the time, who sent their children to a Greek gymnasium for training and education (Figure 10).
Portrait of a teenager, 2nd century AD, whose hair braids were a symbol of the children of the highest nobility in Egypt at that time. Copenhagen, National Museum 3892
For the upper echelons of society at that time, Greek culture was an important symbol of dignity. Between 330 and 323 BC, Alexander the Great conquered the entire Near East, bringing with him a large number of immigrants from the overpopulated Greek mainland. Greek became an international language, and from Afghanistan to Marseille, cultured people spoke Greek. During the more than 300 years that the Ptolemaic dynasty ruled Egypt, the number of egyptian immigrants reached hundreds of thousands. Greek immigrants enjoy privileges such as tax exemption and exemption from military service, and have their own courts.
During the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, Greek culture was revived again, Hadrian himself was madly in love with Greek culture, after the drowning of his young lover Antinio in the Nile, he built a new city in Egypt to commemorate him, and named it After Antinio - Antiniopolis, where a large number of mummified portraits were found, and this city is also one of the most admired greek culture cities.
According to Petrie's statistics, about one in every hundred tombs has a mummified portrait, that is, only one percent of the tomb owners have a mummified portrait. This shows that portraits are only made of particularly prominent people, or of children who have died young and whose deaths are particularly deplorable. Compared with other deceased people, the portraits and mummies of these nobles are extremely luxurious.
3. Portrait before death or portrait after death?
The answer to this question depends in part on the time of production: earlier portraits (first and second centuries AD) had a strong personal touch, many of which had traces of reworking and were apparently processed to suit the needs of the funeral, such as some portraits where the edges were cut to fit the shape of the linen strip wrapped around the mummy; some portraits had gold backgrounds that had been added after they had been wrapped in part of the linen belt; and in others, the golden crown and jewelry were added later. These features indicate that they were originally real-life portraits and later treated to be placed on mummies. Later portraits (after the second century AD) were monotonous, reflecting only the type of figure rather than the vivid individual, and some people also held funerary symbolic objects in their hands, which were usually previously painted on mummified shrouds or mummified masks, such as rose garlands, wine glasses, and ointment bottles. These portraits were supposed to have been painted after the death of the deceased. However, the timing of these two types of portraits is not absolute, for example, the portrait of Antinopolis is after 130 AD, but they also have traces of processing to accommodate funeral rites.
The function of mummified portraits is a long-standing controversial issue in the academic community, some scholars believe that they are portraits of the deceased hanging at home before they died, and after death, they are taken down and placed on the mummy by cutting, as mentioned above, some mummified portraits have wooden frames, and it can also be seen that they were placed on the mummies after repair. But in recent years most scholars have believed that this is a posthumous image made specifically for the funeral of the deceased. Because even with the frames, the portraits do not look like they are displayed on the wall, their central parts are carefully treated, but the edges are not retouched, and it is obvious at the time of production that they are to be placed on the mummy's head. In addition, scans and facial reproductions of the mummies beneath the portrait revealed that the age of the deceased was basically close to that reflected in the portrait. Many of the portraits are of children, and roman families generally hang portraits of elders or ancestors, and are unlikely to place portraits of children at home. Therefore, it is more likely that after the death of someone, the family of the painter ordered the portrait, and when the body was taken from home to the mummification workshop, the funeral ceremony of the Greeks was followed, and the funeral procession carried the portrait all the way to the mummified processing place. When funerals are officially held, portraits also serve as tombstones, serving as the heart of the funeral.
During the Greco-Roman period, although the preservation of wooden stone tablets was limited, the ritual of reciting the autobiography on tombstones (whether stone or wooden) continued at the funerals of the native Egyptians, and the autobiography was longer and richer than before. The owners of mummified portraits, whose cultural background should be Greek or Roman, accepted Egyptian burial customs, but did not choose the traditional Egyptian tombstones and their clichés, but followed the portraits in their own cultural traditions. These detailed trade-offs also reflect their different concepts of the afterlife than the Egyptians.
Death in different senses
As the Egyptologist Asman put it, death is at the heart of culture. The Egyptians did not define life and death as we do. For them, life and death coexist, and human life, like everything in nature, goes on and on and on. Death is only a transition, not an end, and new life begins all over again in death. Facing death was an important attitude of life for the ancient Egyptians, building mausoleums and preparing for the afterlife journey was their great goal in life, and they were convinced that through decent burials and proper rituals, the dead could complete the transformation, become eternal beings, and maintain communication and contact with their loved ones through festive celebrations, integrating into the community of the living without leaving society. The ancient Egyptians did not shy away from death, but invested a lot of attention in death, and even developed a unique funerary economy. Ancient Egyptian tomb buildings have two parts, open and closed, of which the above-ground ancestral hall is an important ceremonial space, not only the funeral is carried out here, but also the important festival every year, relatives will pay homage here. As the prayer on the tombstone of ancient Egypt reads: "May he have abundant offerings and food, and be enshrined by Osiris at the Festival of Waag, the Festival of Tute, the Festival of Fire, the Feast of the New Year, the Great First Feast, the Great Procession, and all other feasts for the great gods." ”
Thus, for the ancient Egyptians, the core beyond death was the preparation of the tomb and the continuation of related rituals.
In Greek mythology, Hades, the god of death, ruled the afterlife. In Odyssey, Homer describes the underworld deep underground, where Hades and his wife Persephone rule over countless drifting shadows—the "shadows" of all those who die. The Greeks believed that at the moment of death, the soul of the deceased left the body like a breath or a gust of wind. They also attach great importance to the burial of the dead, believing that the unsettling of burying the dead is an insult to human dignity, which is reflected in works such as the Iliad and Antigone. Relatives of the deceased also preside over elaborate funeral rites, which usually consist of three parts: the parking of the body, the funeral (ekphora), and the burial of the deceased's remains or cremated remains. During the parking period, relatives and friends come to mourn and pay tribute, and then the funeral procession takes the deceased to the cemetery. Burials are few and far between, but huge mounds, delicate marble tablets and statues are often erected to mark the location of the cemetery and ensure that the dead are not forgotten, and in Greece, immortality lies in the continued remembrance of the living for the dead.
The Romans followed Greek burial customs and placed more emphasis on the monumental nature of the cemetery. Immortality through social memory is at the heart of the Greco-Roman conception of the afterlife.
In contrast to mummified masks, portraiture evokes the memory of the dead in a lifelike image, allowing them to reside in people's memories. Achieving eternal life in this sense, rather than relying on offerings and rituals, is a transcendence of the Egyptian concept of the afterlife.
The picture of the mummified shroud of the Greco-Roman period reflects, on the other hand, the complex cultural mentality of these Greco-Romans living in Egypt. The shroud, which is the subject of the book of the dead, is a feature of the Egyptian burial tradition and has been used continuously during the Greco-Roman period, usually after the mummy has been put into the coffin, covering the top of the mummy. Colorful mummified shrouds are particularly common in Upper Egypt. Above we see Anubis, the God of Death in Egypt, and two other figures of man, both of which should be images of the dead, one of which is the image of the Romans on three-quarters of the sides, and the other of which is the image of the Egyptian on the front, which is the best symbol of the two-sided society. These are two images of a man, a Greek who lived in Egypt during the Roman period, with a Greek face, Roman costumes, and an acceptance of Egyptian burial customs. When he ordered the mummified portrait, he hesitated: What kind of image should I appear in front of the grim reaper of another world? Am I the way I am, or do I come according to the rules of Egypt? So in the case of not being assured, he painted both images. The inner monologue goes like this: When I get there, I can recognize me whether I see Osiris, the Egyptian god of death, or our Greco-Roman god. (Figure 12)
Fig. XII The Shroud of Submusani, 125-150 AD, length: 185 cm, width 125 cm, Pushkin Museum, n5749
Vi. Eternal gaze
What impresses most about mummified portraits is the gaze of the gaze. Although portraits have differences in technique and method, and there are differences in styles in different regions and different eras, the common features of all portraits are large eyes that exceed normal proportions and a calm gaze that gazes forward.
Compared with the symbolic mummy mask, the mummy portrait is realistic, especially in the early portraits, and the physical and personality characteristics of the characters are vividly portrayed. Among them were young women with good faces, noble and elegant noble women, mighty and heroic soldiers, innocent and lovely children, and white-haired old people. Some of their expressions are calm and determined, some are melancholy and low, some are serious, and some are joyful. Gaze at these portraits as if you feel these living figures traveling through time and space, coming to you and telling their stories.
Compared to the Greek art of the classical period, these portraits convey inner strength in a static way. There are no moments of intense excitement like those of the Greek classical period, but a rich rendering of the greatness and nobility of the mind in a state of harmony and tranquility. The masters of the portraits gazed calmly and firmly into the unknown distance, their eyes filled with silence, as if they were saying goodbye, as if they were looking at the journey in the distance, and when the viewer looked at it, wordless words filled the heart.
Portraits of mummies are a product of the crossroads of culture and history. They were located in the 1st to 3rd centuries AD, when the use of ancient Egyptian script was gradually limited, and the alphabetical Coptic language replaced the traditional hieroglyphs, and the pictorial function of hieroglyphs was compensated by the figurative and realistic imagery of portraiture. In the realistic and realistic portrait, the pure realistic program is broken with highly consistent eyes and gazes, resulting in a strange fusion.
Conceptually, the use of mummified portraits, which transformed the emphasis on ritual and resurrection in traditional Egyptian burial customs into Greco-Roman remembrance of the dead, replaced the imaginary afterlife of the ancient Egyptians with the immortality of social memory. The owner of the portrait had no lavish mausoleums and funerary items, not even coffins. Just as the shroud corresponds to different futures with two images, the mummy with the portrait combines two possible afterlife worlds: the mummy embarks on an Egyptian-style eternal return, and the portrait leaves a lasting memory for future generations.
During the Hellenistic period, with the decline of ancient empires and the fall of the city-states, the entire Mediterranean region fell into a period of "ritual collapse", but it was this relaxation of etiquette that brought openness, multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism. When the stage of history plays the drama of commercial princes amassing wealth and mercenaries desperately trying for money, the traditional undercurrent is silently converging, completing integration and transcendence in silence.
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