hellenicportraits.txt

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THE

HELLENIC PORTRAITS


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FROM THE FAYUM

AT PRESENT IN THE COLLECTION OF

HERR GRAF

WITH SOME REMARKS ON OTHER WORKS OF THIS CLASSAT BERLIN AND ELSEWHERE

NEWLY STUDIED AND APPRECIATED

BY

DR. GEORG EBERS

NEW YORKD. APPLETON AND COMPANY

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THE HELLENIC PORTRAITS.

Ik the spring of 1888 the author of these pages un-dertook the grateful task of introducing to a widercircle of lovers of art and antiquity certain examples,then but just arrived in Europe, of ancient Greekportraits with which a happy accident had made him

familiar before they were known to other experts andstudents. These portraits, in fact,' merit the consider-ation not merely of the archseologtst and the historianof art, but of every one interested in painting and itshistory ; for they lill a gap in its records, and are notonly curiosities of art, but, some of them, true andthorough works of art, as striking as they are curious,and appealing to our love of beauty no less than toour interest in the history of culture and in ethno-graphical research into what may be called the physi-


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ognomy of nations.

The anticipations I expressed five years ago havebeen fully justified that specialists would, like my-self, undoubtedly devote themselves to a study ofthese works, and that artists would find in these re-markable portraits a pleasing surprise, a singularcharm, and perhaps even some unexpected teaching.

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4 THE HELLENIC PORTRAITS.

Savanls, archseologisls, and anthropologists in Ger-many, France, England, Holland, and Denmark, havewritten elaborate reports on these interesting works,to some extent confirming my assumptions and throw-ing new light on them, though sometimes contestingthem; and the painters who have examined the pic-tures have not merely heard with the mind's ear the

very voices of long ago and seen how nearly our re-mote ancestors had reached their present level, buthave even learned something from them. The genu-ineness of these paintings, for which I was preparedto vouch in 1888, after a most careful investigationhas long been placed beyond all doubt.

At an even earlier date we had pointed out certainwrappings of the dead, discovered in graves of post-Christian date, as adding in a remarkable degree to ourknowledge of the costume and the textile arts of thetime, referring more especially to the excellent scien-tific dissertation on these relics by Professor Karabacek.

It was a merchant of Vienna, Herr Theodor Graf, whobrought to Europe the very instructive Fayum papyriwhich form the nucleus of Archduke Rainer's collec-tion, as well as the tablets from Tell-el-Amarna (forthe most part at Berlin), which must prove of highvalue to the study of history, languages, and commercein Oriental antiquity ; and the same gentleman's eagerand intelligent enthusiasm for such researches wassuccessful in securing the collection of paintings hereto be discussed, he having a branch of his businessestablished in Egypt.

As a good friend of mine, from our school days

together, Herr Graf allowed me to inspect these newlyacquired treasures before they were shown to my col-

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leagues. He brought ten of the pictures to me atVevey, where I spent the winter of 1887-88 for the sakeof the mild climate ; of the rest he sent me photographscoloured by hand, and I may truly say that each con-signment was a fresh and agreeable, nay, a delightful,surprise. At the present time I have long been famil-iar with the whole series of portraits, and, throughthem, with so many different types of humanity ofwonderfully marked individuality. On my return homeI continued the study I had begun in Vevey of theseinteresting works, and I here propose to give anaccount of the conclusions to which I have been ledas to the place of their origin, as to other monumentsof the same kind with which they must be classed, theperiod and conditions of culture to which they owetheir existence, and the peculiarities of these particularexamples.

The Place where the Works were found.

Herr Graf's agents can give us at least some gen-eral information as to the locale of their discovery.These portraits, like the papyri lately become famous,were all found in the district now known as the Fayum,the extensive oasis fertilized by a branch of the Nilewith its numerous channels, which lies beyond theLibyan mountain range on the west of the great Nile-Valley, a stretch of pasture and orchard land between

39 and 30 north latitude. A branch line of railway,dividing from the main line to Upper Egypt at Wasta,now runs through the heart of the province, which isfamous for the production of sugar cane, vegetables,

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roses, and fruit; the olive tree also thrives here as itrarely does in the Nile Valley. Medinet-el-Fayum, thechief town of the oasis, is at a short distance from theruins of Crocodilopolis, known under the Ptolemies asArsinoe. This town, as a result of the discoveryamong its remains of certain fragments of papyrus,has recently undergone a sort of resurrection, differentin character but otherwise not less interesting thanthat of Pompeii ; for whereas Pompeii was rescuedfrom oblivion by the pick and spade, the patience and


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acumen that have deciphered these half-destroyed listsof revenues, rolls of accounts, and the like, have madeus so familiar with Arsinoe that we know not merelyits streets, squares, and public buildings, but the num-ber, names, and possessions of the inhabitants of someof the houses. Much of the life of the citizens liesbefore us as in an open book, and records of variousexpenses tell us to what festal or other purposes therevenues even of the temples were applied.

Under the Ptolemies Arsinoe was a considerableGreek colony ; and even under the Roman emperors itwas still a flourishing provincial town, the most im-portant doubtless of the whole district; so that whenwe learn that the Fayum was the scene of the discov-ery of these pictures a suspicion irresistibly forcesitself upon us that they were executed for the some-time citizens of Arsinoe. But Herr Graf's agentsfound them at Rubaiyat near Roda, and on seekingthis place on a map of the Fayum we see that it isnearly fourteen miles from Arsinoe, so that the inhab-

* The branch line goes piist Medinet-el-Fayum, and llirough theorchard land to die sugar factory at Abnksa.

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THE HELLENIC PORTRAITS. 7

itantsof that town had to send their dead a consider-able distance, if indeed they were buried at Rubaiyat.But the character of these portraits proves that theywere painted for the citizens of an important town ;

and though we shall see that at a later period theArsinoites seem to have buried their dead in a spotmuch nearer home, they must still have clung to theancient custom of interment at the edge of the desert,although it lay at no small distance from the town inthe heart of the garden land. It has long been knownthat the Egyptians never laid out cemeteries or erectedfunereal monuments in fertile ground. All the build-ings connected with the service of the dead are on thesoil of the desert, and where we find rock tombs theyare in the cliffs of stony and barren hillsides.

Moreover, a Greek inscription engraved by Arrian

a disciple probably of Epictetus explicitly tells us:

" The Godi of old formed tbe towering hilltops.Stinting with care the com-bearing meadow land."

But it was not only to economize the arable landthat the Egyptians consigned their burial grounds andall connected with them to the desert ; it was because,in the fields washed by the inundation, the mummies,which above all else must be cherished and preserved,


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would have been soaked and destroyed. There is noreason, therefore, to dispute U. Wilcken's* statementwhen he asserts that bodies were brought from so faras ArsinoS to be buried in the tombs at Rubaiyat. Butthey were also used by the inhabitants of another

* U. Wilcken, an aitjcle in the Jahrbuch dn K. DcutschenArchtologischen Inililuti, iv, 1SS9, pt. t, p. 4.

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smaller and less known place, namely Kerke (K^xr^),which can have had but little connection with Arsinogsince it belonged to another government a circum-stance which makes it not indeed impossible but moredifHcult to identify the mummies of Rubaiyat as thoseof the citizens of Arsinoe, for extreme and often hos-tile peculiarities divided adjoining districts. To Aby-

doB, for instance, the dead were brought from variousnomes, though the often-mentioned " passage of thecorpse to Abydos " may be taken as merely a figure ofspeech. Moreover, several of the mummy labels, tobe described presently, lell us that bodies from Phila-delphos, which was in the government of Arsinoe,were buried at Kerke, which belonged to that of Mem-phis. And with the portraits wooden tablets havebeen found with more or less injured inscriptions, allrecording the fact that the burial ground of Rubaiyatbelonged to the harbor, or landing place {Spfuys), ofKerke,* while on the largest and smallest tablets alikeit is expressly stated that this was within the boundaries

of the nome or government of Memphis.Thus Memphis, and not Arsinoe, was the chief townin which the authorities ruling over Kerke resided;and this judicial connection is quite intelligible, sinceRubaiyat, which we may regard as its necropolis, lieson the ridge which forms the natural limit line be-tween the Fayum and the nome of Memphis. It is,however, hard to reconcile the designation of Kerkeas a harbor or landing place with the present state ofthe hydrography of the district; for Rubaiyat now

't Spiuf KtpK^ is more correctly rendered al the viharf ef

Kcrkl thn IB Ihi harbor of Kerkt.

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THE HELLENIC PORTRAITS. g


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lies in a spot but sparingly irrigated by one of thenarrow channels known locally as Bats, and its stillnarrower side streams; this is, in fact, a canal fromthe Bahr-Jusuf (or Joseph's channel) which suppliesthe whole of the Fayum with water. Whether WadiWardane, discovered and mapped by Linant de Belle-fonds, was ever navigable in ancient times, makingKerke a practicable shipping place, can no longer bedecided; but according to Stadler, the present gov-ernment entertains a project for making it available asa water way through the province. It was to be ex-pected that few traces should be visible of the net-work of canals which formerly gave the Fayum its fer-tility. It has undergone many great changes evenwithin the pericfd between the survey of the Frenchengineers under Napoleon (Description de I'Egypte)and that made a few years since, as shown in Schwein-furth's map. The statement that Kerke, near themodern Rubaiyat, was a river port, and, as we learnfrom our portraits, a place of some importance, is cal-culated to throw fresh light on a much disputed mat-ter, the irrigation and water ways of the Fayum in an-cient times. Kerke, too, perhaps, was one of the oldertowns of Egypt, for on the ridge to the east, within

less than two hours' camel ride from Rubaiyat, the re-mains of a pyramid have been found quite unconnect-ed with the necropolis of Memphis.

Besides the wooden tablets " discovered with theportraits, two hitherto unpublished Greek ostraca men-tion the town of Kerke.- These were communicatedto me by the kindness of Prof. Wilcken. They were

* The tablets were name labels atuched t

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lO THE HELLENIC PORTRAITS.

found on the hill of Sedment, which divides the Fayumfrom what was the government of Herakleopolis, atabout eight hours' camel ride from Rubaiyat/

The most interesting of the Greek documents inwhich mention is made of this place is that on thesecond wooden mummy label from Rubaiyat ; it can

only be interpreted as meaning that an individual,whose name is unfortunately lost, after living in thevillage of Philadelphos, was brought after death to theport or landing place at Kerke, where evidently alarge cemetery existed.

Mummy Cases with Portraits. The Berlin Col-lection. The Structure of the Tombs,


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AND WHAT it PROVES.

Memorials which must be generally classified withthese portraits are in the wider sense numerous ; in anarrower sense they are rare.

It was from early times a practice among theheathen Egyptians to place an effigy of the deceasedoutside the case which contained the mummy; but inremote ages this was not a portrait painted on themummy case, but a molded mask decorating the head

* He also points out the oime Kerke in two composite names Ketkesouchos. the dwelling of Sebak, the ciocodile-god, and Ker-kasoros (Herodolas ii, 15), Ihe place where the Nile is said to havedivided into the Canopic and Pelasiac branches. Thus the old ren-dering "the dividing of Osiris" must be abandoned; the namemust readKerkeusms(KpiH^ip(i), and be interpreted as "the dwell-ing of Osiris." Zeiischrift fUr Bgypiischc Sprache and Alteithums-kunde, Berlin, 1B83. p- i(>2.

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THE HELLENIC PORTRAITS. n

end of it. The hands, too, were not infrequentlymodeled, while the lid of the case itself was shaped In

imitation of the swathed corpse, all in one, the legsundivided, with a slight elevation over the feet, Suchsarcophagi exist made of various kinds of stone, ofwood, and most frequently of a sort of pafier-macM,

which the ancient Egyptians prepared with ma^erlyekill; and this form was so highly admired amongneighboring nations that the Phcenicians, for instance,adopted it, as is proved by the Fhccnician sarcophagibrought to Paris by Renan among theifi that of thefamous king Eschmunazar and by those discoveredat Saida (Sidon) in 18S7.

On the papier-macM mummy cases of this shape,which, as we shall presently see, assumed from theninth century a quite peculiar form, the portrait maskof the deceased was heightened by color ; still, thoughwe find among these some very marked and character-

istic modeled faces, they are all treated with the strict-ly symmetrical flatness of feature that distinguishesthis class of Egyptian art. Mummy cases like thesefrom Rubaiyat, on which portraits on linen or woodare inserted at the head end instead of molded masks,are, on the other hand, rare. There are two preservedin the Egyptian collection at Dresden, others in Checabinet of coins at the Paris Library, and again oth-ers, reproduced by Gayet, in the Bulak Museum nearCairo.


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There are two {now numbered provisionally as 14and 35) in the Berlin Museum. On these the portraitsare painted on the linen cover.

We are more especially concerned here with thosespecimens where the portrait uf the deceased was

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painted on wood and attached to the mummy case.We wiil presently return to the consideration of thepainted wrappers preserved at Berlin.

Six more portraits of the same kind as Herr Graf'swere acquired for the Louvre from the Clot-B& collec-tion; there are others in the British Museum and theNational Gallery, London, and in the Berlin Museum.

Since Mr. Flinders Fetrie, the Enghsh antiquary, un-dertook his excavations in the Fayum, bringing tolight a rather considerable number of portrait mum-my cases, several similar works have passed into theBulalc Museum, the British Museum, the Peel ParkMuseum, Manchester, and others.

As it has unfortunately been impossible for me toinspect the Berlin specimens myself before printingthis pamphlet, Herr Professor Erman, the enlighteneddirector of the museum, has been good enough to de-scribe them. There are four-and-twenty portraits,several still attached to the mummy case, and some of

them remarkably fine examples. Particularly note-worthy is No. I, representing a powerful man withnegro blood in his veins; the hair and beard are wool-ly, the lips thick. The expression of the face is ratherstupid, and the subject wears neither robe nor orna-ments. The portrait, however, is capitally painted.No. I was perhaps the favorite servant of some richman, who had the portrait done for him.

No. 2, still attached to the mummy, which was dis-interred with others by H. Brugsch in 1892, has fea-tures of an unmistakably Semitic cast. The complex-ion is light, the hair very black and curly. The pub-

lic call him by Jewish names.

Among the Graf collection there are six of men

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>3

and two of women, of which the originals must havebeen Semitic, as any one can see. These are Nos. 5,6, 7 (this one not only on the evidence of the fea-tures), io, 44, 49, portraits of men ; Nos. 11, 12, por-traits of women.

But to return to the Berlin examples. No, 7 isparticularly interesting, and all the group belongingto it ; they were discovered at Hawara, in March, 189a,by Professor Kaufmann and his companions, amongthem Major von Wissman and Dr. H. Seidel, of Bruns-wick. These are a mother, a father, and three chil-dren a baby, a child of about three, and a girl of six.The mummy of this little maiden, which Dr. Seidelpresented to the museum, was, like her father's, deco-rated with a golden mask ; the mother's portrait was

painted on a wooden tablet, and a tombstone foundnear her body bore an inscription.* The lady musthave been a woman of wealth and splendid tastes.The public, it is said, believed that she was the be-dizened wife of a butcher, but the fine pearls round herthroat indicate that she was of high rank. She is alsoknown as the Lady Aline, and her name, in fact, wasAlinei, or, if we take off the final i, Aline.

* As follows:

^ Kai TtVlit'H/HuSov xpV

froit ( (Sicarov) I \i L {Ir&v 35)

fitcropij 7-{^fiipCi iifTaia) \The reconstruction of the data on which the translation ii basedi* given by Frofeisor Wilcken.

AAINHI

H KAI TCNceC

HpCDAOYXpH

CTH XAI[>erTOAAA

eTovc I Ae LMecopH z


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The inscription on the stone may be rendered :

Alinei

Also called TenosHerod's daughterThou good oneA tender farewell *The year lo 1Mesdreh 7th j *^^ ^^

That is to say, in the tenth year of the reign ofsome regent or emperor, on the seventh of the Egyp-tian month Mesoreh which corresponded to themonth from the 17th of June to the i6th of July.

Mesoreh 7th would be June aad.The deceased was then the daughter of a Herod.Neither the name Alinei nor the second name Tenosoccurs elsewhere, but there are other Graeco- Egyptiannames terminating in ^l We are at once reminded ofAlineh, and supposed it to De a Greek feminine formof the Semitic name Ali (in Hebrew |)jf). The Se-mitic form for the feminine would be Alijat or Alijah.The modern German name Aline is a derivative fromthe Arabic Ali the High One. The inscription un-fortunately gives no exact information, through eitherthe date or name, as to the position of the lady and

her husband, or the time when they lived. She too,perhaps, was of Semitic race. The words "the year10" no doubt refer to the reign of some Roman em-peror,

* XptiaTii is frequently addressed l

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