ROME, Nov 4 — An elegant woman gazes out from her portrait with expressive eyes, a gilded wreath worn in her hair and a gentle, questioning look on her face.
She is one of the 2,000-year-old “Faces of Fayum”, startlingly realistic funerary—or mummy—portraits painted after Egypt became part of the Roman empire.
The fragile portraits dating from the first to third centuries AD—painted on thin wooden panels and designed to be placed over the face of mummies—will go on display in Rome in what organisers hail as a “milestone” collaboration between Italy and Egypt.
“Egypt and Rome, the Faces of Fayum”, opening Wednesday at Rome’s Ara Pacis museum, also includes mummies, masks, shrouds, jewellery, marble busts and statuary.
