Fayum portraits leave Egypt for the first time for Rome exhibition

The “Egypt and Rome, Faces of the Fayum” exhibition opens in Rome on Wednesday, featuring funerary portraits dating back around 2,000 years. Some are leaving Egypt for the first time in what organizers described as “historic” cooperation between Italy and Egypt.

The Ara Pacis Museum in Rome will open the “Egypt and Rome, Faces of the Fayum” exhibition on Wednesday. It features a collection of Fayum funerary portraits dating back around 2,000 years, and organizers describe it as a landmark in cooperation between Italy and Egypt, according to Agence France-Presse.

These realistic portraits date from the first to the third centuries AD, after Egypt became a Roman province. They were painted on thin wooden panels and placed over the faces of mummies, secured within their wrappings, and were influenced by Hellenistic painting traditions.

إحدى بورتريهات الفيوم الجنائزية (صورة أرشيفية)

Some of the exhibition’s masterpieces have been allowed to leave Egypt for the first time, including a recently restored double portrait from the reign of Emperor Hadrian depicting two curly-haired young men believed to be brothers. The exhibition also includes mummies, masks, shrouds, jewelry and marble busts.

The dry climate of the fertile Fayum region on the edge of the desert helped preserve the painted wood, textiles and papyri on display.