Fayyum Portraits
/ˈfaɪ.juːm ˈpɔːr.trəts/noun
Realistic funerary portraits painted mainly on wooden panels and attached to mummies in Roman-period Egypt.
Did you know?Many Fayyum portraits were painted during life and later placed over the person’s mummy, making them among history’s earliest highly realistic personal portraits.
Etymological Timeline
Ancient Egyptian period
Egyptian
pꜣ-yom
“A proposed source meaning “the Lake” or “the Land of the Lake”; the exact etymology is debated.”
Ptolemaic period
Greek
Arsinoïtēs
“The Greek administrative name for the Fayyum region, associated with the nearby Lake Moeris.”
Roman Egypt, 1st–3rd centuries CE
Greek/Latin
Fayoum portraits
“Modern labels for realistic funerary images produced in the Fayyum region and other parts of Roman Egypt.”
Latin
Latin
portrahere
“To draw forth, depict, or represent; formed from pro-, “forth,” and trahere, “to draw.””
Old French, 12th–13th centuries
Old French
portrait
“A representation or likeness, from past participle forms related to portraire, “to portray.””
Modern English
English
Fayyum portraits
“The conventional archaeological term for Roman Egyptian mummy portraits, especially those discovered in the Fayyum oasis.”