Roman Mummy Portraits - Dr. Michael Birrell
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- Опубліковано 28 лют 2020
- Roman mummy portraits from Egypt are among the most remarkable art works to survive from the ancient world, providing unique insights into the burial customs, hairstyles and fashions from the 1st - 3rd centuries A.D. The Pharaonic tradition of mummifying the dead continued for several centuries into the Roman period, at times wrapping deceased in ornate linen with a naturalistic painted wood portrait positioned over the head. These painted portraits are thought to have hung in frames in private homes until eventually being placed over the mummy.
Dr. Michael Birrell lectured at the Ancient History of Macquarie University, and has taught many courses for Continuing Education at Sydney University. He has worked on numerous archaeological excavations in both Egypt and Israel, and has travelled widely in the Middle East, Asia and Europe. Dr. Birrell runs his own guided tour company, 'B.C. Archaeology.
'B.C. Archaeology' is a small travel company which was founded by Dr Michael Birrell, an Australian historian and archaeologist, in 2000. He saw a need for a specialised inexpensive tour experience which catered to those with a desire to travel and learn about archaeology. To learn more, please visit: www.bcarchaeology.com/
About a thousand of these exist and we’ve only seen a handful. I wish there were a museum exhibit somewhere that we could visit to see them all in person or at least a database somewhere which we could peruse. I’ve seen 5 in Detroit and 3 recently in Budapest, one of them being of an older lady with grey hair and no jewelry. All seem incredibly “alive” when seen up close and personal. 17.07 is exquisite.
Great lecture, really enjoyed it! My only disagreement is that you can absolutely paint in Encaustic with a brush. I do, all the time.
Yes that was weird, he went out of his way to say several times no can’t be done it’s impossible to use a brush, only a palate knife can be used.
Greenish background is not a distemper but a green gesso - ground known in egypt in variety of types and colours. On this ground (used through centuries untill today) painter put several thin layers of semitransparent paint. Egg tempera on wood is never made of egg white but of egg yolk. Egg yolk after several months of drying becomes - the same as beeswax - waterproof (what not happens to egg white) what among other factors caused these portraits to survive.
This is so freaky, these people are so lifelike but lived during the reign of emperor Augustus, this really humanizes the people back then, especially because their hairstyles are so much like we have today.
they are egyptian not roman
Spell bound! No word! What a incredible realistic picture!! Highly sofisticated society! Great! Let's pray for the victims!
These photo-realistic portraits and their incredible preservation are just breathtaking. Real masterpieces from ancient artisans. It took the West much more than 1000 years to re-discover and re-achieve this mastery in art. (And another 100 years to dissolve and degenerate into “modern art”). Thanks a lot for the fascinating presentation.
@@Michael-zp8fz i couldnt agree more it's full of souls it's like when their souls left their bodies resided in the portraits
Shalom, please Google black European royalty. Lol
1000? More like 1700 lol
Ikons in the Orthodox Church are not supposed to be realistic pictures Try reading Talbot Rice. He shows how funerary portraits carried in processions and civil portraits of dignitaries like Emperors were the forerunners of the ikons of the earlier Church. many were destroyed in by Icononclastic Emperors and Empresses in the E Mediterranean Empire.
Mummy portraits are not all that realistic. Eyes and Hair are often exaggerated,
GREAT ART GREAT CONFERENCE
great lecture! thanks
Never seen these before. AWESOME ART WORK! Thank you..
Thank you for this video
Well presented! Thanks!
Shalom, please Google black European royalty.
@@davidbenyehuda7618 lmfao..you sound desperate
Incredible YT content, thank you
Shalom, please Google black European royalty.
I love to draw portraits like these... I'm art student...
Some of these look like modern people playing dress up. Incredible.
13:45 Actually Christianity continued the tradition of the Fayoum portraits. The Coptic Christians used the style to make the first Coptic icons.
He’s referring to the mummy tradition specifically
@@user-zq1nz7qv7o yes but was the portrait tradition continued ?
Ikons were commonly encaustic until Iconoclasm from about 770 AD
Thank you for this lecture.
It’s all about setting the play speed at 1.25.
🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
X2
How can get a few questions answered on this fascinating topic?
Me enamoré de la mirada y la boca del joven de barba bien cuidada, es solo Miles de años mayor que yo, pero la edad no importa
Fayoum portraits in Egypt
6:04 She could be a movie star
Thay defonte know what is 3d painting
I see real photo of people who lived almost 2.000 years ago
They all look sad
liked it....
a lot of uuhhh.s tho........, especially in the begining of part one...., stil i liked it.
greetings bibia
These people wrote Greek had Greek names, but all I here is Roman and Egyptian. Greeks are too good to remain Greek
Constantinople wrote in Greek. N Africa including Egypt wrote Greek. The Church wrote in Greek.
Interesting. Speaker sounds like he's trying to speak through a nervous breakdown. I hope that wasn't the case!
its ancient Egyptian face and egyptian save thier body after die
and Roman fire thier body after die
It's good he calls these paintings Roman and not Egyptian, since when they dig up the Mummies they call the Egyptian mummies.
Porke la información la hacen en inglés y no en español
It is a recording of a lecture in Australia. to an Australian University. It is not a UA-cam feature. Someone uploaded it to UA-cam for those who are interested.
The beautiful Mediterranean type, and the Anglosaxon people were considered inferior by the tanned Mediterranean people!
Shalom, please Google black European royalty.
@@davidbenyehuda7618 lol@you you racist supremacist. You are a Hebr ew either. You want to be everything except from West Africa.
Nothing "inferior" there..a mediterranean is a mediterranean. Dont try to make it look like as if among mediterranean people color is an indicator of anything. Mediterranean people, regardless from which part of the region they are from, have a variety of skin shades from pale/whitish till dark olive tan within the pheomelanin spectrum.
Erroneous surprise by the narrator about the painter being paid in wine. Wine was the perfect currency, it was valuable, lasted long, it was a liquid currency (no pun intended) as it could easily be exchanged for other goods, it could be split in smaller parts for smaller change, it was a fine currency except for the volume and weight, but that was a minor problem where the painter and the customers where all local. A painter got paid in wine could simply go to the market and sell it in parts for the goods he needed. Today we have a much worse system where a parasite minority of banksters control the printing of paper currency out of thin air and illegitimately charge a % interest. This creates all sorts of problem such as financing by debt and the very destruction of the environment due to this 'limitless' supply not being backed by real material ressource. This is actually the biggest problem of contemporary society and the source of most society evil, including wars, destruction of the environment, financial bail out of banks charged to the tax revenues paid by people, etc..
It's a good thing that he calls these Roman or Roman Egyptian and NOT EGYPTIAN.
The title should be corrected to Egyptian mummies during the “Roman era” or “Greco-Roman era.
The title is correct!!!! They were Greco Romans living in Egypt.
@@ORGPPL1 No they weren’t Romans or Greeks, they don’t look Romans or Greeks, they look Egyptians. The Romans and the Greeks didn’t worship the Ancient Egyptian gods nor were buried the Egyptian way and didn’t speak the Ancient Egyptian language. Those were buried the Ancient Egyptian way with Ancient Egyptian writings with prayers to the Ancestors Egyptian Gods.
@@Sema-Tawy You need to study more! Ptolemy and Cleopatra were "Greek" and their "Egyptian" style carvings are still on the walls in Egypt and Romans did worship Egyptians gods.
That said, the individuals in these portraits look exactly like other Greek and Romans of that era. What you're doing is comparing their looks to Modern Egyptians who are descendants of these same Greeks, Romans, Syrians and other immigrants who settled in Egypt.
@@ORGPPL1 I am not the one who needs to study before commenting. You don’t seem to understand the difference between building a temple for the locals and worshiping their Gods. Alexander the Great was named Sun of Amun and his coronation was done in Siwa temple by the Egyptian priests, that doesn’t mean he worshiped Amun, that is simply a way to keep the please the Egyptians and make them accept the new ruler. Nor the Greeks nor the Romans spoke the ancient Egyptian language.
As per DNA studies the Greco-Roman mummies show continuity to the old mummies and to the modern Egyptians.
You make it sound as if ii compared Egyptians descendants to modern Ghanian. Of course i would compare Egyptians to the their descendants in modern Egypt same as we are comparing Greeks and Romans to their modern descendants.
@@Sema-Tawy Ridiculous! I didn't mention Alexander. As for the DNA studies, the Greco Roman immigrant mummies that Max Planck etc based all of their studies on, show continuity with the modern citizens of lower "Egypt", not the founders of ancient "Egypt"!
The guys at 12:06, 43:56, and 48:53 are pretty fetching, as are the ladies at 12:35 and 50:03. Lurid observations aside, a few points: 1. Romans, Egyptian or otherwise in residence, didn't typically die in their 30s or 40s if they made it past the age of 12. So the ridiculous statement, especially with respect to those wealthy enough to afford a sarcophagus and a fancy high class portrait that even today would cost a good deal, that life expectancy was the reason for the subjects' youth is not credible. Textual and statuary sources show that patricians and the mercantile middle lived well past 40 and usually kicked the bucket in the late 50s or mid 60s. 2. I don't trust strict stylistic methods of dating. As we can find today occasional examples of strict High-Modernist architecture in line with a style from the late 1950s being newly built - and certainly this is true of painting, where certain retro pieces are stylistically indistinguishable from original forebears - so also there are estuarial periods at every point in history, where pieces characteristic of a previously dominant style are newly made in an era where new styles are more prevelant. There are also immaculate forgeries that have fooled even the best stylistic experts. For this reason, we must rely more and more on molecular analysis, as such methods become more refined. 3. It is not surprising that payment in wine might be accepted. Just as merchants in Pennsylvania traded in Whiskey as a hedge against rampant inflation at the end of the 18th century, so also wine might be a better bet in certain periods than denarii when wanting a store of value that could fetch key goods no matter where you went in the Empire. Lastly, maybe that was true of lower-tier artists but the good ones likely took only gold, if free citizens.
Hmmm looks like EVERY single one of these has Japanese anime doll eyes
Greeks of egypt.roman period. El fayum. Egypt.
they are egyptian
@@ebbo9152 yes and most of them are Greek. Go eat some popcorn!
@@simonindra3225 a study tested out the dental affinities of these fayum mummies. They closely clustered with predynastic and post dynastic egyptian samples. They also clustered with modern upper egyptians the most when comparing them to modern populations. Greeks and Romans weren't apart of the cluster....even Greek Egyptians were further away. Nice try guy
@@ebbo9152 they all have Greek names.and most of them are actually mixed
@@simonindra3225 they have greek names because they are hellenized...the still believe in the egyptian religion and practise mummification. They aren't mixed or Greek, they are native Egyptians, according to dental affinities (you cannot dispute this even though ik it hurts your feelings). Modern Egyptians have arab names and we are still ethnically native Egyptians...it's called arabisation. Hellnisation vs arabisation. Truly a simply concept, they look Egyptian more than anything as well😭 stop trying to steal our heritage wannabe
It is the racism in classical studies that the classical scholars
are desperate to keep Egypt out of the classical world, because Egypt is in Africa.
as egyptian we dobt care about racism but we will bot allow wlstiol egyotian history for european
Not Egyptian? How does one with so much education come to such a bewildering conclusion I wonder. Not in what we'd call the Pharonic style certainly. But if they're painted in Egypt by Egyptians, and the faces are those of Egyptians, then how can you say they're not Egyptian? In short, the lecture is indeed interesting but the title is all wrong. It feels like a deep seated bias of some sort.
Why would a greek or Roman follow the Egyptian religion 🤔?
Because Egypt was an ancient and respected civilisation, even to the Romans, and considered the origin of all mystical and magical wisdom and many sciences; people of all backgrounds, as citizens of the Roman Empire, especially military veterans, considered and called themselves 'Roman', even if they were not Latins from the city of Rome; and cultural exchange, interracial marriages, even religious syncretism, and the like, were relatively common, and had been going on between the Hellenic world, & later Rome, and Egypt for centuries when these were painted.
Also because of 'interpretio Romana': the Romans would see the similarities between a foreign religion and their own, and assume that the same gods were already being worshipped by themselves and the foreigners, just under different names with different rituals.
because they were egyptians not romans in the portraits
@@thealmightyaku-4153 those are egyptians mate. Dental affinities on these fayum mummies cluster with predynastic and dynastic egyptians. Doesnt cluster at all with romans or greeks at all. They were high class egyptians who were hellenized with their names
@@ebbo9152 The citizens of the Roman Empire called themselves 'Roman', regardless of their ethnicity.
You're also ignoring how, for example, the Isis cult became widespread throughout the Empire, even in Rome itself & much further afield, or the ethnic Greek presence in Alexandria, and others, where many 'went native' - like Cleopatra VII herself - or how native Egyptians, like one 'Apion', took on the semi-foreign god as detailed in his letters from when he joined the Roman military.
The world is complex than you think.
The Fayum mummies may be ethnically Egyptian - but they were not the only peoples, the only Romans, in Roman Egypt.
@@thealmightyaku-4153 i'm not ignoring any of this. My whole point is that these portraits are of native Egyptians, not Romans or Greeks.
These are Egyptian traditions. The Romans burned their dead , Egyptians were the ones obcessed with the afterlife.
Funeral processions had these portraits Ikons carried in front of them. Not all encaustic portraits are from Mummies.
You call them Roman , when it's obvious , even by their names that they are Greek.......
Shalom, please Google black European royalty.
Nothing roman on it.
@Hamza a no they did not. The people of the Fayyum portraits were Egyptians.
The people of the fayyum portraits were Egyptians during the Roman era. Not sure what you mean by "nothing Roman on it" or how this is relevant.
Yes, they were Romans, not Italic Romans but Romans anyway.
@@proarte4081 Technically they were Romans only after 212 aD. Before they were not Roman citizen. The tradition of painted faces in funerary art is Greek.
Roman?
you must be kidding me
how come similar portraits never been found in Rome or Greece or anywhere in Europe?
Western people and academics will you please get over yourselves!!!
because only egyptians mummified their deaths
32:32 In pompiie they've found earlier and often better examples of portraits which clearly shows these later Fayum portraits have direct influence from earlier roman portraits.
@@masterYodaYoda absolutely not!!!
Pompey examples are far inferior (like kids sketches in comparison) and also limited in numbers..no comparison in quality or numbers (Fayum portraits are in the thousands and compared only to renaissance painting quality 1400 years later)
@@bubaq3713 but Romans painted frescoes that are of a lower quality to Egypt's (death was not necessary to paint), and Vesuvius mummified entire cities in Italy!!!
haven't you seen the walls of Pompey?
The dark ages were not dark
those are egyptian, not romain buddy....shame on you tho
Supernaturally boring rendition of what might have been a fascinating subject, but comes across more like a hostage video. Was the poor speaker drafted into Egyptology against his will? Could he display more reluctance or lack of enthusiasm? He should have chosen some other vocation. Birrell gives us half of what is to be obtained from a Wikipedia article in twice the time. Clearly he knows as much about art as he does public speaking, but its the students for whom I feel the most sorrow. Imagine having to pay to listen to this. Very ummmm interesting!