Featured Independent Study of the Month
Saundra Ayala (Ancient Mediterranean Art History) - “Fayum Mummy Portraits of Roman Egypt”
In the Fall of 2007 I completed my senior thesis/independent study on the Fayum Mummy Portraits of Roman Egypt. The portraits, which date from the 1st to 3rd centuries, are some of the best preserved paintings from antiquity and represent a kind of hybrid art in which Greco-Roman and Egyptian traditions can be seen simultaneously.
My research examined the portraits from an art, archaeology, science and sociology perspective, and presented several ways in which the portraits and their subjects may be interpreted in an attempt to better understand not only the art form of the mummy portraits but the context in which they were create and subsequently viewed. A visual analysis of several portraits on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum of Art provided a physical description of the portraits. However, I looked beyond the portraits themselves to the history of painting and portraiture in Egyptian, Greek and Roman culture to determine how these influences and traditions were contextualized in the mummy portraits.
My research also shed light on questions of idealization in the mummy portraits by examining scientific evidence, and presented alternative explanations for the most common arguments concerning their representation. Additionally, the burial practices and funerary arts of Egypt, Greece and Rome were considered in light of their influences on the commemoration of the dead in Roman Egypt. The portraits also provided a central point from which the demographic and social identity of the inhabitants was examined.
For this independent study, I worked with my CUNY BA mentor Prof. Rachel Kousser, Art, at Brooklyn College.
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