More than 1,000 mummy portraits, painted on wood panels or cloth shrouds between the first and third centuries a.d., are in museums today. In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, archaeologists unearthed scores of these portraits, primarily at cemeteries in and around the Fayum region of Lower Egypt. Excavators often removed the panels or shrouds from the mummies, discarded the bodies, and sold the portraits to institutions throughout Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As a result, scholars have almost exclusively studied the portraits as works of art divorced from their archaeological and funerary contexts. They have focused their efforts on researching stylistic elements and establishing the identities and ethnicities of the deceased, whose names and biographies rarely survive. Few researchers have investigated how the paintings were made.
Nearly a decade ago, J. Paul Getty Museum antiquities conservator Marie Svoboda launched a project that would use materials science to study mummy portraits in collections around the world. “Because the panels are so well preserved, there is so much evidence of materials still present on them,” says Svoboda. “I’m interested in understanding the portraits in terms of ancient working practices.” To date, she has enlisted colleagues from 49 international institutions to collaborate on a project called APPEAR (Ancient Panel Paintings: Examination, Analysis, and Research).
A painting of a woman on lime wood is one of the mummy portraits being studied by researchers using special camera filters under different light wavelengths (left to right: visible, ultraviolet, and infrared) to identify pigments and binding agents.
ãã®èšäºã¯ Archaeology ã® January/February 2022 çã«æ²èŒãããŠããŸãã
7 æ¥éã® Magzter GOLD ç¡æãã©ã€ã¢ã«ãéå§ããŠãäœåãã®å³éžããããã¬ãã¢ã ã¹ããŒãªãŒã8,500 以äžã®éèªãæ°èã«ã¢ã¯ã»ã¹ããŠãã ããã
ãã§ã«è³Œèªè ã§ã ?  ãµã€ã³ã€ã³
ãã®èšäºã¯ Archaeology ã® January/February 2022 çã«æ²èŒãããŠããŸãã
7 æ¥éã® Magzter GOLD ç¡æãã©ã€ã¢ã«ãéå§ããŠãäœåãã®å³éžããããã¬ãã¢ã ã¹ããŒãªãŒã8,500 以äžã®éèªãæ°èã«ã¢ã¯ã»ã¹ããŠãã ããã
ãã§ã«è³Œèªè ã§ã? ãµã€ã³ã€ã³
A Very Close Encounter
New research has shown that human figures painted in red on a rock art panel in central Montana depict individuals engaged in a life-or-death encounter during an especially fraught historical moment.
A Sword for the Ages
A zigzag pattern, now tinged with the green-blue patina of oxidized metal, adorns the octagonal hilt of a rare sword dating to the Middle Bronze Age in Germany (1600-1200 B.C.) that was recently excavated in the Bavarian town of Nördlingen.
Ancient Egyptian Astrology
For centuries, layers of soot have coated the ceilings and columns in the entrance hall of Egypt's Temple of Esna. Now, an Egyptian-German team of researchers, led by Hisham El-Leithy of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and Christian Leitz of the University of TÃŒbingen, is restoring the temple's vibrant painted reliefs to their original brilliance.
BRONZE AGE POWER PLAYERS
How Hittite kings forged diplomatic ties with a shadowy Greek city-state
RITES OF REBELLION
Archaeologists unearth evidence of a 500-year-old resistance movement high in the Andes
Secrets of Egypt's Golden Boy
CT scans offer researchers a virtual look deep inside a mummy's coffin
When Lions Were King
Across the ancient world, people adopted the big cats as sacred symbols of power and protection
UKRAINE'S LOST CAPITAL
In 1708, Peter the Great destroyed Baturyn, a bastion of Cossack independence and culture
LAPAKAHI VILLAGE, HAWAII
Standing beside a cove on the northwest coast of the island of Hawaii, the fishing village of Lapakahi, which is surrounded by black lava stone walls, was once home to generations of fishers and farmers known throughout the archipelago for their mastery of la'au lapa'au, or the practice of traditional Hawaiian medicine. \"
A MORE COMFORTABLE RIDE
Although the date is much debated, most scholars believe people 5,000 years ago. For thousands of years after that, they did so without saddles. \"In comparison with horse riding, the development of saddles began relatively late, when riders began to care more about comfort and safety in addition to the horse's health,\" says University of Zurich archaeologist Patrick Wertmann.