Panel Portrait of a Woman

Funerary portraits immortalize the sitter, and their status, for eternity. Fayum portraits, named after the Faiyum Governorate where many of them were found in the 19th and 20th century, depict elite Greco-Egyptian sitters from Roman Imperial Egypt.

This woman ‘s portrait has grown hazy with age, but we can still see her brilliantly gilded earrings, gold coin necklace, and gold details on her garment. The knot in her purple and white garment may associate her with the cult of the goddess Isis. Isis merged with the Greek goddess Aphrodite in some places during the Ptolemaic dynasty. Isis-Aphrodite was still popular during this woman’s lifetime, reinforcing the syncretic beliefs about life, death, and divinity that characterized Fayum portraits, which drew from both Egyptian and Greco-Roman funerary practices. Read more about syncretism in Greco-Egyptian funerary portraiture.