Coloured Portraits Of Ancient Egyptian Mummies Revealed In New Discovery

The Egyptian government recently announced that they have discovered rare full-coloured portraits of mummies- during the tenth excavation season of the mission. Researchers found the portraits of mummies and fragments of others at the Gerza excavation site in Fayoum, Egypt, reported Sciencealert.

The portraits of mummies, or what is known as Fayoum portraits, are among the most important archaeological discoveries that were found during the current season, as the discovered models are the first models that have been found since the last discovery, according to a release by the Egyptian government. These artworks are the first of their kind to be discovered in over 115 years.

Flinders Petrie, an English archaeologist was the last to find similar artwork, he discovered 146 mummy portraits at a Roman cemetery in 1911, according to Artnet News.

The findings are from a dig site located amid the ruins of the ancient city of Philadelphia, which according to the Austrian Archeological Institute, lies in the northeastern corner of Fayoum, approximately 75 miles southwest of modern-day Cairo, reported Business Insider.

The investigating team also discovered a funerary building, records written on papyrus, pottery and coffins dating from the Ptolemaic period, which spans from 305 B.C. to 30 B.C., through the Roman era, which lasted from 30 B.C. to 390 A.D.

The government said that portraits were made nearly 2000 years ago and are of people living in Philadelphia. Fayoum portraits portray the wealthiest people that existed in these ancient communities. Philadephia was home to Greeks and Egyptians 600 years ago.

Basem Gehad, the head of the Ancient Philadelphia Excavation project who led the latest dig told Artnet News, his team also uncovered "a number of coffins of different styles, some of them in the human form and others in the Greek form with a gabled roof." Mummies within showed how much money mattered in ancient Gerza-some were embalmed with great care, others were left for dead in "burials of a simple nature," said Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

A terracotta statue of Isis-Aphrodite, the fertility and love goddess, recovered from the wooden coffin of a young Greek girl standing apart from the cache. Not only is such a relic rare, but it also "reflects the influence of Greeks on Egyptian art as a result of [the] new community living there."