Roman Portraits in Egypt

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91. Roman Portraits in Egypt.

Author(s): W. M. Flinders PetrieSource: Man, Vol. 11 (1911), pp. 145-147Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland

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PLATE K. MAN, 191 1.

.-

ROMAN PORTRAITS IN EGYPT.







1911.) MAN. [No. 91.

ORIGINAL ARTICLES.

Egypt. With Plate K. Petrie.Roman Portraits in Egypt. By W. M. Flinders Petrie, F.R.S., f4

F.B.A. UIFor our knowledge of the classical civilisation we are dependent upon the pre-

servative climate of Egypt in the case of the more perishable kinds of objects. The

documents, clothing, and portable paintings of the Roman world would be practically

unknown to us had they not been preserved in the sands of a rainless climate. In

1888 the excavations at Hawara on the eastern border of the Fayum, brought to light

a large number of portraits, and last winter I was able to finish the cemetery there,

as the natives had removed much top earth since my previous work. It is hardly

likely that we shall see from any other site more important examples of Roman

portraiture. The Fayum was the most foreign province of Egypt, havinlg been entirely

settled by the Greek troops upon freshly reclaimed land; and the cemetery of Hawara,

six miles from the capital Arsinoe, was the burial place of the richer inhabitants,who were taken so far in order to be near the pyramid of the deified King

Amenemhat III, worshipped there as the founder of the province.

The custom of decorating mummies with gilt stucco covers became much developed

in the Ptolemaic time; the head and foot covers which stood out from the bandages

were carefully modelled and decorated with mythological figures in relief or painted.

The purpose of this elaboration was the growing custom of keeping the mummy in

the atrium of the house, and this seems to have developed under the classical influence

on Egypt, as we find no trace of the idea during the purely Egyptian ages. Possibly

the wax figures of the ancestors which Romans kept in the hall, and for which the

marble statues were substituted, led the Romano-Egyptian to keep the decorated

mummy above ground. This usage of the mummy renders possible the ancient

statement about drawing the mummy round at a feast; for, when once the mummy

was kept in the house, Egyptian ideas of the funeral feast for the benefit of the

mummy would lead to its being brought forward to join in spirit in the family

gathering.

The results of keeping the mummies standing in the half was plainly seen on

those that we find. The stucco has been kicked about at the feet, the head is caked

with dust and dirt, often rained upon, falls have dented in the surface or smashed

the face. Even the little boys at their lessons have scribbled caricatures upon the

feet of their relatives.

About the end of the first century A.D.-the close of the twelve Cesars-there

was a fashion of taking the canvas portrait of the dead which had hung in a frame

on the wall, and putting that over the face of the mummy in place of a conventional

stucco head. These canvas portraits were usually busts, including the shoulders, but

were covered over by the bandaging, or folded back, so as to only show the face, an

evidence that they were painted for a different place and exposure to that upon the

mummy. To these soon succeeded the use of panel portraits pailnted on thin sheets

of wood, much like stout veneer. Such panel portraits were certainly framed for

hanging up, as I found one in an " Oxford " frame with a groove to hold the glass

over it, and a cord by which to hang it up. In every case of those which I could

examine, the panel has been roughly split down at the sides to narrow it, and the

top corners very roughly cut off, in order to reduce it to the size and shape for fittingon to the mummy. This is proof that the panel was not originally prepared for

attachment to the mummy, but was a large picture independently used and afterwards

badly trimmed. This fact is strong evidenlce that the portraits were painted during

life for show in the house like modern portraits, and their preservation upon the

mummy was only a secondary use. The period of th-is fashion seems to have been[ 145 ]









1911.] MAN, [Nos. 91-92.

(D). The necessity of scatterinig them will be met by a full publication in colours,

containing twenty-eight on a large size, besides thirty-two in photograph, which will

be issued next spring by the British School of Archoeology in Egypt, partly in

the annual volume and chiefly in an album published separately. This will include

all the best of this year's group, and of those found before from this cemetery.

W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE.

Malta. Tagliaferro.Prehistoric Burials in a Cave at Bur-meghez, near Mkabba, 0

Malta. A Paper read before the Royal Anthropological Institute on the U13th June 1911, by Professor NA Tagliaferro, LS.O.

In a communication read before the Malta Ilistorical and Scientific Society at

the meeting held in February last on a neolithic tomb discovered at Bukana, near

Attard, Professor Them Zammit stated that the importance of that discovery was

due to the fact that hitherto nothing certain was known as to the mode in which

the builders of our megalithic monuments buried their dead.Almost all the rock-tombs discovered in the Maltese Islands, except the one at

Bukana, belong to historic times.

Prehistoric human remalns have, so far, been found in only three places: namely,

Ghar Dalam, Ilagiar Kim, and Hal Saflieni.

In the course of a too limited excavation made at the Ghar Dalam cavern in

1892 Mr. J. H. Cooke discovered in the upper deposit a human metacarpal bone

and some prehistoric potsherds. No inference, however, could be drawn from these

scanty data as to whether the individual, to whose hanid the bone had belonged, was

buried in the cavern or not.

At Ilagiar Kim a skull of a negroid was discovered in 1839 ; but niothing is known

as to the mode of its burial.Professor Zammit in his first report on the Hal Saflienii prehistoric hypogeum,

after alluding to the confused state in which human bones were found, states that

they were strewn about out of their natural position, that the heaping of skeletons

was quite evident, and that the enormous amount of bones accumulated in the hypo-

geum was quite out of proportion to the size of any dwelling centre in the neigh-

bourhood. The thousands upon thousands of bodies massed in these grottoes might

well represent the population of all the neolitlhic villages of Malta.

The mode of burial remained, however, doubtful, as there were no sufficient data

to decide whether the hypogeum was a real burying place or an ossuary, or both.

The neolithic tomb lately discovered by Professor Zammit at Buka,na at last

furnished a solution to the problem which had till then puzzled archaeological

students. But that is not the only solution. It has been my good fortune to

discover another mode of burial in prehistoric times, to which I have the honour to

call to-day the attention of this Institute, viz., burials in the soil of natural caves.

It is probable that this mode of burial was of an anterior date, and in more

genieral use, as it obviated the necessity of digging tombs in an age when no metallic

tools could be used for cutting stones.

My comiuig across this mode of burial was quite accidental.

Whilst engaged, at the beginning of March last, in exploring the ossiferous

fissure which crosses the stone quarry known as "Tan-Naxxari" at Bur-meghez,

three-quarters of a mile to the north-east of Mkabba, where a large quantity of half

fossilized bones of more than one variety of stag (Cervus elaphus) were being ex-

tracted, I was shown several human teeth, molars and incisors, purporting to have

been found in the same quarry at the furthest end of the fissure near the surface of

the rock. I received the report with utter incredulity, and was hard upon the poor

man who made it; but on his insisting on the veracity of his report, I repaired to

[ 147 ]





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Roman Portraits in Egypt