Around a thousand portraits painted in encaustic on wooden panel, found
in cemeteries around the Fayum region of Roman Egypt and dating from the
1st to the 3rd century AD. They were laid over the face of the
mummified dead, as a painted funerary mask. They combine Greek and Roman
naturalistic technique with Egyptian burial custom. Today they are
scattered between the British Museum, the Louvre, the Metropolitan, the
Cairo Museum and others.
