Fayum mummy portraits

Mummy portraits or Fayum mummy portraits are a type of naturalistic encaustic portrait typically painted on wooden boards attached to the mummies of upper class individuals living in Egypt during the Roman period. They belong to the tradition of panel painting, one of the most highly regarded forms of art in the Classical world. The Fayum portraits are the only large body of art from that tradition to have survived.

Mummy portraits have been found across Egypt, but are most common in the Faiyum Basin, particularly from Hawara and the Hadrianic Roman city Antinoopolis. "Faiyum portraits" is generally used as a stylistic, rather than a geographic, description. While painted cartonnage mummy cases date back to pharaonic times, the Faiyum mummy portraits were an innovation dating to the time of Roman rule in Egypt. The portraits date to the Imperial Roman era, from the late 1st century BC or the early 1st century AD onwards. It is not clear when their production ended, but some research suggests the middle of the 3rd century. They are among the largest groups among the very few survivors of the panel painting tradition of the classical world, which continued into Byzantine, Eastern Mediterranean, and Western traditions in the post-classical world, including the local tradition of Coptic Christian iconography in Egypt.

The portraits covered the faces of bodies that were mummified for burial.