Mummy Portraits
The mummy portraits are stunning, with production beginning around 30-40 CE, sixty years after the defeat of Antony.
Examples include portraits of an unknown woman (c.160-70) and a boy called Eutyches (c.100-150).
Discovery and Display
The Annual Report of the Director of the National Gallery for 1888 announced the display of three painted wooden panels, almost two thousand years old, unearthed from Roman-period cemeteries in Hawara, Egypt.
Before arriving at the National Gallery, they were shown at the Egyptian Hall on Piccadilly, alongside complete mummies and other finds from the Fayum, exhibited by archaeologist W.M. Flinders Petrie.
The panels were almost two thousand years old and had been placed over the faces of mummies and integrated into their wrappings.
Author's summary: Mummy portraits were produced around 30-40 CE.