Roman

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Roman
30BC - 395AD
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Funerary Portrait of a Young Girl
Traditional Egyptian burial practices continued
well into Roman times. These lifelike portraits
were made for a specific purpose, namely, to
cover the head of the mummified individual
represented in the portrait. Typically, they were
painted with encaustic (pigment mixed with
beeswax) on wooden panels, as was the case with
the Funerary Portrait of a Young Girl. Less
frequently, they were painted directly onto the
linen shrouds that covered the mummy, which is
how the other two examples shown here were
made. Hairstyles, jewelry, and clothing are
carefully rendered according to contemporary
fashion. Meticulously rendered details such as
skin tone, facial hair, and bone structure
suggest a keen sense of the subject's
individuality, and with it, an inevitable sense
of mortality. The addition of gilded details on
the lips and jewelry of the young girl is a rare
detail that allude to the individual's
trans-formation in death into a blessed spirit,
or akh, a being of light.
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Antinoo/Osiris
Statue of the divinity Antinous/Osiris in white
marble, signifying Upper Egypt. The statues of
the Serapeum of the Canopus demonstrate how the
emperor Hadrian had deified his favourite
Antinous, who drowned precisely in the canal
called the Canopus which linked Alexandria to the
main branch of the Nile, through his assimilation
with Osiris, the god who dies and is reborn, in
his turn already associated by the Ptolomies with
Serapis, Alexandrian divinity of salvation.
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STELA OF HORUS ON CROCODILES
This type of stela was a powerful talisman
against the stings and bites of scorpions and
snakes. It represents the child Horus standing on
two crocodiles and holding dangerous animals. He
is flanked by divine emblems related to solar
divinities. Such stelae were erected in public
places to heal and protect from bites by drinking
water poured on them. The texts inscribed on them
were magical and could halt threatening dangers.
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SCARAB
Ankhpakhered lived in a time of instability and
political decline which prompted archaizing
tendencies in the arts in the hope of
reincarnating the glorious past. Hence sculptors
rediscovered idealism as apparent from this block
statue. They left the limbs exposed and
ornamented the face with a flaring wig showing
the ears, neck, and a short beard. Ankhpakhered
folds his arms and holds a rolled cloth in This
beautiful blue scarab is veneered to a small
piece of gilded wood. The beetle scarab always
symbolized rebirth and the generative forces of
the rising sun. It was used as an amulet, a
pendent, or as a stamp seal mounted on a ring.
Large scarabs were inscribed with texts to
commemorate certain events, such as the
construction of a lake for queen Tiye. right
hand. The kilt forms a flat surface in order to
write an offering formula and Ankhpakhered's
genealogy on it without hiding the rest of the
body and limbs.