Book review: “The Mysterious Fayum Portraits: Faces from Ancient Egypt” by Euphrosyne Doxiadis

There is a knowingness to the man in this portrait, a sadness, not surprising given that it is a death painting, an image on wood that was placed at the head of a mummy, his mummy.

In her masterful book The Mysterious Fayum Portraits: Faces from Ancient Egypt, artist Euphrosyne Doxiadis writes that the dark blue cloak over this man’s shoulder suggests that he was a soldier. His eyes suggest that he’s seen much in his life although he’s not at all aged.

It’s the eyes that grab the viewer. They are human eyes, looking out but, even more, looking in. He does not see what is in front of him but studies all that has gone before.

We know that look of the eyes. We see it every day, we enact it.

 

“Aline, also called Terris”

This is a face we’ve seen before, on Middle Eastern people we’ve passed on sidewalks or at the airport or in Target store. And not just Middle Eastern people.  It’s a face of determination and vulnerability.

This is the face of a strong woman, rich to judge from the gold necklace, a woman who could get things done. And, again, there’s that inward look, and that sadness. There was a placard identifying the woman:

“Aline, also called Terris, daughter of Herodas, kindly one, fare well.”

Aline was buried with two small children, her daughters, it seems. This image was painted directly on her shroud. As are the images of the two little girls on their shrouds.

 

“Engagement of the imagination”

Doxiadis’s Mysterious Fayum Portraits was originally published in 1995 and has been an important resource ever since. Thames & Hudson issued this new edition in 2024, with only one major change.  The original foreword by ancient history expert Dorothy J. Thompson has been replaced by one from Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif.

In that foreword, Soueif notes that the Fayum portraits — many but not all were found near the Cairo suburb of Fayum — have confused Northern scholars who haven’t been able to decide if they’re Egyptian or Greek or Roman.

Soueif cuts through the confusion to say simply that the portraits are “of people with Greek names and Greek or Roman apparel,” but they’re Egyptians, no question.

But that’s beside the point, she writes:

The portraits invite questions but — rather like that open gaze that so characterizes them — they are not asking for answers but for an engagement of the imagination.

 

“They look beyond us”

The Fayum portraits, now numbering more than a thousand, were executed by Egyptian artists influenced by Greek styles from the late first century BC or early first century AD over a period of maybe two or three hundred years.

They evoke amazement from modern viewers because they look so human, so like how we see ourselves, how we see those around us.  Soueif writes:

Turn the pages of this wonderful book and you will see all of humanity here. Like us in the variety of their hues, their hair textures and coiffures, their care to be seen in their jewelry and adornments.

They are wonderfully portrayed as individuals, and, yet, they also share one thing: death.

And every man and woman here is painted in the moment when they consider their death. Commentators have noted that although their gaze is direct, they do not see us. Indeed, they look beyond us, at that daylight into which they must go forth.

 

His fragility

This image from the late years of the first century is described by Doxiadis this way:

This is not a flattering portrait, but it gives the impression of being true to life. He is well-built, even rather fat, and has a marked five o’clock shadow.

Again, it’s the eyes that lock into us. He may not be handsome or elegant, but he’s real. We have seen this man. We feel his thinking, his inward gaze, his fragility in the face of death.

 

“A flame of immortal life”

As Soueif notes, you page through The Mysterious Fayum Portraits: Faces from Ancient Egypt and you find all of humanity, including the unhandsome man above and this most beautiful woman, recalling a movie star, maybe Audrey Hepburn.

Doxiadis writes:

Her splendid necklace and earrings with emeralds, pearls and a cornelian, her wreath, and the ribbon at the neck of her tunic, show her wealth.

There are the eyes, yet again, and Doxiadis writes:

The Fayum portraits are the most outstanding body of painting to have come down to us from the ancient world, remarkable for their social and psychological insight and for their quality as art.

And it’s easy to see why Andre Malraux described the Fayum portraits as “glowing with a flame of immortal life.”

 

Patrick T. Reardon

4.9.26