The Mysterious Fayum Portraits: Faces from Ancient Egypt

Now available in paperback, this magnificent book has won widespread praise from art historians, archaeologists and journalists alike. Beautiful full-page colour photographs allow us to come face to face with the inhabitants of Roman Egypt 2000 years ago, their memory preserved in paintings used to commemorate the dead. Illustrating the best and most interesting portraits, Euphrosyne Doxiadis has grouped them according to geographical area. The text describes their social, artistic and geographical context, reveals the techniques used and shows how the Fayum portraits relate to Byzantine icon painting, in a tradition that extends from ancient Greece to the Renaissance and on to the present day.