Portrait of Eirene
The portrait of Eirene is a realistic looking Egyptian mummy portrait from the middle of the 1st century AD. The artifact is unique because of its detailed inscription in demotic script .
Like other mummy portraits, it was painted using the encaustic technique on a one-millimeter thick linden wood panel. The upper end of the panel is cut to a semicircular shape and there roughly follows the head shape of the portrait. It was tied to the head of the mummy, and the remains of the bandage can be seen at the level of the collarbones. The board is 37.2 cm high and 22.2 cm wide. The bust of a young woman ("shoulder piece") is shown in frontal view, the head turned slightly to the left from the observer's point of view. She wears a golden laurel wreath in her hair. The short hair is twisted into very fine, small curls. The large eyes under the thick eyebrows as well as the narrow, full lips hardly show any emotion and convey the impression of detachment. Eirene wears elongated silver pendants in the roughly worked ears. The nose is quite large and gives the impression of a somewhat elongated, narrow face. The shoulders are covered by a reddish-brown robe.
The plaque bears a three-line demotic inscription, which is applied under the chin across the neck and beyond: “Eirene, daughter of Silvanus, her mother is Senpnoutis. May her soul live before Osiris - Sokaris , the great god, Lord of Abydos , for ever. ”The reading, especially with regard to the father's name, is uncertain. It is the only known demotic inscription on a mummy portrait, while demotic inscriptions are common on so-called mummy labels . All other known and inscribed mummy portraits, however, have Greek inscriptions. The demotic script was still widely used until the first half of the first century, after which it was only used for religious texts with decreasing frequency until the third century. It fits in with the fact that the mummy portrait is dated to the 1940s and is therefore one of the earliest such images and also has a religious reference.
The panel shows the intensive cultural penetration of Egyptian, Hellenistic and Roman cultural influences. The name of the Eirene is from the Greek, possibly Roman for the father ( Graecization of the Latin name Silvanus ) and Egyptian - theophore for the mother, the deities are Egyptian, the style of the portrait, the hairline and the ear jewelry is typically Roman. Very few mummy portraits bear inscriptions, and if so, then mostly only the name or a job title, but no further information. More information about Eirene is therefore not known, but it can be assumed that she came from an ethnically mixed family of the upper middle or upper class.
Although the portrait appears to show very individual features, some researchers assume that it is not actually a portrait of the deceased Eirene, but an individually adapted series product by an artisan who specializes in such work. Other researchers, on the other hand, assume that the pictures were created during their lifetime and were then kept in the house until the burial, which would speak for far more individuality.
The portrait of Eirene comes from the collection of Ernst Sieglin and is now under inventory number 7.2 of the antiquities collection of the National Museum Württemberg . The original location is unknown.
literature
- Barbara Borg : "The most delicate sight in the world ...". Egyptian portrait mummies (= Zabern's illustrated books on archeology . / Special issues of the ancient world ). von Zabern, Mainz 1998, ISBN 3-8053-2263-1 , p. 63.
- Ernst von Sieglin and Theodor Schreiber (editor), Rudolf Pagenstecher (editor): Painting and sculpture. (= Expedition Ernst von Sieglin: excavations in Alexandria, volume 2.1A), Giesecke & Devrient, Leipzig 1923, pages 8–9, plate 8. pdf
- Nina Willburger : Evidence of Roman mummy decoration from Egypt. Ernst von Sieglin and his collection . In: Daniel von Recklinghausen (ed.): Egyptian mummies. Immortality in the land of the pharaohs . von Zabern, Mainz 2007, ISBN 978-3-8053-3778-6 , p. 230–232 (On the occasion of the exhibition in Stuttgart in the Landesmuseum Württemberg from October 6, 2007 to March 24, 2008).
- Nina Willburger: True Treasures: Antiquity . Landesmuseum Stuttgart / Süddeutsche Verlagsgesellschaft in Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Ostfildern 2016, ISBN 978-3-7995-1140-7 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Quote from True Treasures Antike , Landesmuseum Stuttgart, p. 57.
- ^ Klaus Parlasca , Hans G. Frenz : Ritratti di mummie. Repertorio d'arte dell'Egitto greco-romano. Series B, Volume 4. “L'Erma” di Bretschneider, Rome 2003, p. 127 No. 12; the father's name used to be read as Silanos ; on the inscription also Barbara Borg: "The most delicate sight in the world ...". Egyptian portrait mummies. von Zabern, Mainz 1998, p. 63.
- ↑ For mummy labels see Sven Peter Vleeming: Demotic and Greek-Demotic Mummy Labels and Other Short Texts Gathered from Many Publications (Short Texts II 278-1200) (= Studia demotica. Volume 9). Two volumes. Peeters, Löwen 2011–2012; Picture galleries for mummy labels : Mummy labels (limestone): a gallery on Digital Egypt for Universities of University College London .
- ↑ To replace the older reading Silanos by Silvanos was suggested by Wolfgang Brunsch in a letter to the museum in 1985; see. Klaus Parlasca , Hans G. Frenz: Ritratti di mummie. Repertorio d'arte dell'Egitto greco-romano. Series B, Volume 4. "L'Erma" di Bretschneider, Rome 2003, p. 127 No. 12.
- ↑ Hubert Cancik, Helmuth Schneider (Ed.): Der Neue Pauly 8, Stuttgart / Weimar 2000, ISBN 3-476-01478-9 , Sp. 465.
- ^ Nina Willburger: Evidence of Roman mummy decoration from Egypt. Ernst von Sieglin and his collection, in: Egyptian mummies. Immortality in the land of the pharaohs. On the occasion of the exhibition “Egyptian Mummies - Immortality in the Land of the Pharaohs” in the Landesmuseum Württemberg from October 6, 2007 to March 24, 2008. Mainz 2007, pp. 230–232.
- ↑ Mummy portrait of Eirene