face the ancestors
Artistic discontinuity
Humanity has witnessed a sad interruption in the progress of the human sciences and the arts since the fourth century AD. This gap of almost a thousand years began mainly as a result of the restrictive nature of the Roman or Byzantine Empire that ruled much of the world in the Middle Ages. In the third century AD. C., the man was about to discover the great mysteries of the universe that surrounded him. Greco-Egyptian scientists in Alexandria had theorized important scientific frameworks for mathematics, geometry, physics, and astronomy. Philosophy, art, literature, drama and religion have also reached new heights with the marriage of Greek philosophy and the vast body of Egyptian knowledge accumulated and stored by Egyptian monks and scholars during 4000 years of tedious progress on the shores of the Nile.
The Fayum portraits testify to the validity of the artistic side of this argument. Fayum portraits date from the 1st to 3rd centuries AD. C. They represent a development of the Egyptian funerary tradition that had manifested itself before in wall carvings, masks, ornaments and artifacts found in the tombs of the ancient Egyptians. But the portraits are so advanced in their artistic style that they can only be compared to the paintings of the masters who came 1,500 years later! ”It is not until 15 centuries later, in the faces painted by Titian or in Rembrandt’s representation of his own features as he saw them reflected in the mirror, that the same art that characterizes many of the anonymous painters is witnessed again. of the Fayum, Euphrosyne C. Doxiadis, a Greek artist and author of ”The Mysterious Fayum Portraits,” wrote in an essay in the catalog accompanying an international exhibition of Mummy Portraits titled ”Ancient Faces” in 1997. So, how, when and why did the art of painting stop, in fact seem to be “forgotten”?
sinful art
I think it had to do with the restrictive and fanatical religious beliefs of the monotheistic religions that soon swept the Middle East, indeed the world, out of the Middle East. At first it was the Roman or Byzantine Empire that used Christianity probably as the only “official religion of the Empire”. In 391, the Christian emperor Theodosius I ordered the destruction of all pagan temples, and the Christian patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria complied with this request.
Socrates Scholasticus provides the following account of the destruction of the temples at Alexandria in the fifth book of his Historia Ecclesiastica, written around 440:
“At the request of Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, the Emperor issued an order at this time for the demolition of the pagan temples in that city; ordering also that it be carried out under the direction of Theophilus. Seizing this opportunity, Theophilus endeavored to maximum to expose the pagan mysteries to contempt”.
colorless centuries
The effect of this decree that prohibited the construction of temples and the carving of sacred images and hieroglyphs was catastrophic for the Egyptian arts that up to that time were connected with Egyptian religions and related rituals. The new religion came with its own set of death-related rituals that restricted Egyptian funerary traditions. Religious hysteria also had serious implications for the progress of the sciences and the arts. Hypatia of Alexandria, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such achievements in Mathematics, Philosophy and Science, was murdered by an angry Christian mob. One day in March 415 CE, during the Lenten season, a Christian mob hijacked her car on her way home. They stripped her naked and dragged her through the streets to the newly Christianized church of Caesareum and killed her. Some reports suggest that she was skinned with oyster shells and burned.
The Islamic rulers, who ruled Egypt shortly after the Arab invasion in AD 639-641, also took a hostile attitude towards the painting of human and animal images. This is the reason why Islamic arts extensively employed plants and geometric shapes, avoiding the depiction of human faces and figures to prevent a revival of idol worship. The world was well into the dark ages. Almost ten colorless centuries had to pass before such art could revive during the renaissance.
resurrection of the last painter
How did the “last painter” feel, knowing that there are no more apprentices left to carry out this artistic tradition? I can only begin to imagine the tremendous grievance of this latest talented man, knowing that with his death, his craft will soon be forgotten. But with the discovery of the Fayum Portraits, these painters were called back from the dead and given a new life. The world today recognizes his art and talent some 1,600 years after his death and celebrates his works in the world’s major museums. And after centuries of oblivion and artistic amnesia, we now pay tribute to those anonymous artists and salute their talent. The works of his “sinful” brushes are now “sacred” artifacts for many art lovers around the world.
The artists, the artists
Returning to the painters of the Fayum Portraits, there has been some controversy over the identity of the artists. Some researchers believe that these artists were Greco-Roman. In my opinion, this is due in some way to the racial bias of 19th and 20th century historians who took a Eurocentric approach to the origins of classical civilizations and culture. Martin Bernal, in his “Black Athena” trilogy, which might as well have been titled “Egyptian Athena,” describes this bias and asserts that much of the achievements of these classical civilizations must be attributed to the ancient Egyptians and the people of the I raised. Why are Greco-Roman artists found in such abundance in the Fayum of all places? It makes sense that these artists were Egyptian and that their art is the natural progression of the Egyptian arts depicted on the walls of tombs and temples for several thousand years.
The faces
The painters were not only Greco-Roman, but some historians claim that the people, the deceased depicted in those portraits, also represent Greek settlers in Egypt. Those historians provide their theory that “It is estimated that up to 30 percent of the Fayum population was Greek during the Ptolemaic period, with the remainder being native Egyptians.” So why would the Greeks focus on Fayum of all places, and why would they adopt these burial traditions that are evidently Egyptian in origin and spirit? Upon examination of the faces, they appear to be typically Egyptian, faces that you would still see today walking the streets of the cities and towns of Egypt.
Evidence, however, shows that when dental morphology [1] of the Fayum mummies from the Roman period was compared with that of earlier Egyptian populations, it was found to be “much more like” that of dynastic Egyptians than it was of Greek or other European populations. So much so that the subjects of these portraits are Greek! One can begin to question the supposed Greek identity of the painters as well!
The art
In an attempt to downplay the artistic value of these portraits, some analysts suggest that the Portraits were mass-produced. They followed a kind of repetitive “templates” that the artists adapted to the specific faces of the subjects. The Fayum Portraits discovered, however, display unique captivating features that amaze you with the depth of each person’s Character. We cannot imagine how this could have been possible using such mass production techniques. And even if such mass production techniques were to be used, it can only take place when the art is well developed in the hands of Masters, so that less famous painters can imitate and mass produce such authentic and genuine artistic advances. But according to Walker [2], “CT scans of all depicted complete mummies reveal a correspondence of age and, where appropriate, sex between the mummy and the image, confirming that the paintings were done at the time of death. In addition, some portraits were painted directly on the coffin; for example, we have a shroud or another part”. This further demonstrates that the portraits were in fact individually painted and rules out the validity of claims of mass production.
Egypt’s dry climate undoubtedly helped these paintings survive centuries of neglect so that today we can see them almost intact and in such excellent condition that it allows us to appreciate the artistry and beauty of these works. Along with surviving frescoes and artifacts from Pompeii and Herculaneum, and tomb frescoes in Macedonia, the Fayum portraits are the best-preserved paintings from antiquity and are renowned for their remarkable naturalism.
Many museums around the world display excellent examples of Fayum mummy portraits, notably the British Museum, the Royal Museum of Scotland, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Louvre in Paris.
unnoticed
So why then are these portraits not famous? How come we had never heard of them in Egypt before? I believe that religious sentiments prevented these masterpieces from becoming local heroes at home, and subsequently around the world. The Portraits date back to what is known in Egypt as the “Coptic Period”, to refer roughly to the time when Egypt was predominantly Christian. This period is viewed with hostility by authorities who prefer to connect Egypt more with its Islamic heritage than with its Christian one. But this is quite unfair for several reasons. First, we have not seen any Christian icons or symbols used by the subjects. These portraits date from the period between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD Egypt was then divided between ancient religions such as the cult of Isis, hermetic traditions, Gnosticism and Christianity. And due to the burial traditions observed in the mummies, it is unlikely that the subjects were actually Christians. In fact, the title “Coptic” simply means Egyptian, derived from the Greek word for Egypt “aiguptios”, a word later modified by the Arabs to “Copts” which they used to refer to the native Egyptians. On the other hand, how long can we ignore this “Coptic” period? We believe that it is time for the Egyptians to make peace with their past in its entirety.
face the ancestors
So, here they are, faces of the Ancestors, staring down at us for centuries, denied their Egyptian identities by Europeans and denied resurrection by their own compatriots. But we believe that they deserve the resurrection. They deserve recognition. And if we owe respect to the living, we owe nothing to the dead but the truth.
References:
1) Irish JD (2006). “Who Were the Ancient Egyptians? Dental Affinities Between Neolithic and Post-Dynastic Peoples”. Am J Phys Anthropol 129(4):529-43
2) Susan Walker, Morris Bierbrier: Ancient Faces, Mummy Portraits of Roman Egypt, London 1997
3) wikipedia: fayum_mummy_portraits
4) Under the Inquiring Eyes of the Egyptian Dead, by ALAN RIDING, New York Times, published: April 26, 1997
