Mummy Portraits of Roman Egypt, Volume 2 : Emerging Research from the APPEAR Project

Mummy Portraits of Roman Egypt, Volume 2 : Emerging Research from the APPEAR Project

Edited by Marie Svoboda and Caroline R. Cartwright

Just over a thousand funerary portraits from Roman Egypt, most of which were separated from their interred mummified remains, survive in museums around the world. These fascinating ancient paintings offer an unparalleled opportunity for viewers to come face-to-face with people who lived and died some two thousand years ago.

The international collaboration known as APPEAR (Ancient Panel Paintings: Examination, Analysis, and Research) was launched in 2013 to promote the study of these objects and gather research findings into a shared database. This second volume of Mummy Portraits of Roman Egypt contains seventeen scholarly papers from the APPEAR conference hosted in 2022 at the Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam. Conservators, scientists, and scholars presented new research on topics such as technical imaging; non-destructive analytical techniques; provenance and collecting; treatment histories; connoisseurship and forgeries; comparisons of works across institutions; and scientific studies of woods, pigments, coatings, and binders. With the most up-to-date information available about the production, materiality, function, and history of these painted funerary artifacts, this volume will be a valuable resource to all who research ancient art.