The Fayum portraits

[Antonius Lucretius]

[url:1dm7u81n]http://portraits.fayoum.free.fr/fayoum/fayoum2b.php?imgport=37&img=35&mus=0&pas=1&dat=0&ori=0[/url]

"The Two Brothers". One of the famous Fayum portraits. The left brother is apparently a soldier if we are to judge by his red cloak..
Note also the tunic's finish, with en embroidery at the hem and narrow clavi stripes ending with a small svastika.


Another fierce looking roman officer..
If someone could tell us what exactly he is holding in his hands??
[url:1dm7u81n]http://portraits.fayoum.free.fr/fayoum/fayoum2b.php?imgport=122&img=120&mus=0&pas=1&dat=0&ori=0[/url]

Also: Several beautiful ladies and a few ugly ones.. All in all a site worth bookmarking.

[Graham Sumner]

Hello Antoninus

Another fierce looking roman officer..
If someone could tell us what exactly he is holding in his hands??
http://portraits.fayoum.free.fr/fayoum/ ... at=0&ori=0

While the Luxor Museum guidebook does not describe what is in the soldiers hands they look like a couple of scrolls to me. The guidebook shows a black and white photograph of this soldier but does however state that his cloak is also red, which is not entirely clear from the image in the database.

Graham.

[Crispvs]

I am not so sure that we should place too much emphasis on the colour of the cloak as an identifying feature of a soldier. After all, the vindolanda tablets mention red cloaks, green cloaks and white cloaks as items being supplied to the fort. Caesar, a century and a half before, says that he was recognisable by his distinctive red cloak, suggesting that his soldiers' cloaks were some colour other than red. We can be fairly sure that there was some sort of language of cloak colours, although this is difficult for us to fully understand at this time, but it seems unlikely that any particular colour would in itself identify a man as a soldier. Military belts and weapons are really the only sure signs of identifying soldiers. Even tunics hitched up above the knees may not have been limited to soldiers, as the practice would also have been convenient for civilian labourers. Any identification based on colour runs foul of a multitude of pitfalls, such as the known second hand clothes industry, the literary and subliterary references above and the local availability of dyestuffs and dyed cloth to name but three.

Crispvs

[A_Volpe]

The officer in the portrait looks like he is holding a scroll, a pen with ink bottle (or a brush and ink bottle? - seeing as he had a scroll, you'd need something to write with!) and the "+" looking thing on the right to me looks possibly like a dagger handle...but it's very hard to see without a better picture and a good closeup. Or perhaps it's some sort of cloak badge or clasp?

Altho it does look like he has a dagger on the right of his body, just underneath his right wrist - looks like a scabbard.

very interesting though.

[A_Volpe]

...is it me or are all of these people starting to look alike??

[Graham Sumner]

I am not so sure that we should place too much emphasis on the colour of the cloak as an identifying feature of a soldier. After all, the vindolanda tablets mention red cloaks, green cloaks and white cloaks as items being supplied to the fort.

I am not sure about a reference to red or green cloaks in the Vindolanda tablets but they do refer to a white Paenula. However they do mention some coloured curtains. Many other Fayum portraits show figures in blue cloaks and the most popular colour in the ancient pictorial sources by far for soldiers or hunters cloaks appears to be a yellow brown.

Caesar, a century and a half before, says that he was recognisable by his distinctive red cloak, suggesting that his soldiers' cloaks were some colour other than red.

Many other senior officers wore purple cloaks which could be why Caesar's red cloak was considered unusual. Maybe it was the same colour as his mens although it would certainly be better quality. But you never know there could be the usual problems with translations.

Military belts and weapons are really the only sure signs of identifying soldiers. Even tunics hitched up above the knees may not have been limited to soldiers, as the practice would also have been convenient for civilian labourers.

I would certainly go along with this, which is why although I was familiar with the brothers portrait I did not include it with the list of evidence for military clothing colours in my books. It does not show their waists or any type of belt or sword which are visible in some of the other classic Fayum images.

...is it me or are all of these people starting to look alike??

Actually a number of ancient pictures identified as being soldiers wear a white tunic and red cloak which could be considered as being a 'uniform', or indicator of some form of rank. A white tunic with a red cloak is the second most common colour combination observed, with a white tunic with a yellow brown cloak being the most popular. White tunics with blue cloaks appear a number of times on the Fayum portraits but I know of only one other example elsewhere. In addition there are a couple of figures with white tunics and white cloaks and I stuck my neck out and suggested in RMC2 that might indicate a Tribune.

the "+" looking thing on the right to me looks possibly like a dagger handle...but it's very hard to see without a better picture and a good closeup.

The Luxor guide book says it is the sword which would be OK for a third century date. The figure also has coloured bands around the sleeves which ties in nicely with lots of other pictures of 'soldiers' from the third century onwards.

Graham.

[Antonius Lucretius]

Regarding that famous "Two brothers tondo", a word about what exactly are these paintings.
They were found on mummies, but originally, they were just family portraits, hanging on the walls of houses pretty much like today.
When the person deceased, the portrait was cut to size and the face fitted over the mummy.
As you may see there are many styles of painting. some good, some bad, some actually incredibly modern --I think about Modigliani, and even Picasso-- and some actually incredibly awful.
You can figure out a hell of a lot looking at those two brothers.
First: It's a very good painting, executed by an experienced artist. Which leads us to the fee demanded by the said artist, which must have been pretty hefty.
That implies that the family of those two was well off and it shows in the clothing. A red cloak of obvious high quality --you put your best clothes on to have your portait made-- and a fine linen tunic with embroidered decoration. The red on that cloak is still very red after some 2 000 odd years. The original must have been a really vibrant red.
You may notice that only one of them wears the red cloak, the other apparently having a white one.
So, when I said "soldier", I did not mean private. I suspect the red cloaked brother is an officer --centurion or above-- and that his younger (?) brother, also in the military, is either a junior officer or a ranker.
The last thing of course is that they are both obviously of military age although I agree this is no proof of their belonging to the army.
What else?
Ah, yes.. Modigliani.. Picasso..[url:389cvge6]http://portraits.fayoum.free.fr/fayoum/fayoum2b.php?imgport=115&img=115&mus=0&pas=1&dat=0&ori=0[/url]

Amazing isnt'it?

[Graham Sumner]

Hello Antoninus

Have you read Doxiadis.E., 'The Mysterious Fayum Portraits:Faces from Roman Egypt'. London 1995. An amazing book on an amazing subject. It is incredible how few people, including archaeologists, know about these pictures and even less about the textiles from Egypt.

It's a very good painting, executed by an experienced artist. Which leads us to the fee demanded by the said artist, which must have been pretty hefty.
That implies that the family of those two was well off and it shows in the clothing. A red cloak of obvious high quality --you put your best clothes on to have your portrait made-- and a fine linen tunic with embroidered decoration. The red on that cloak is still very red after some 2 000 odd years. The original must have been a really vibrant red.

And yet there are many who dismiss ancient artists as source material for Roman military equipment etc... You are quite right Antoninus some of these paintings look like they were executed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In fact I think many early scholars thought they were modern fakes.

With regards to the brothers painting it is noticeable that the man in the painting with the cloak looks less like a soldier than his so called brother which would imply that if he was in the military he was certainly not an ordinary miles.

Graham.

[Matthew Amt]

Caesar, a century and a half before, says that he was recognisable by his distinctive red cloak, suggesting that his soldiers' cloaks were some colour other than red.

As I understand it, the original Latin says something more like "distinctive color" or "bright color", nothing about it being red. Early modern translators used the word "scarlet" to mean "bright", a common usage back then. It's only more recently that scarlet has started being used strictly for a shade of red, and we consequently misinterpret the older works. More recent translations of Caesar don't mention red. So we really don't know what color Caesar's cloak was, only that it was readily recognizable from a distance.

Valete,

Matthew

[Crispvs]

Thanks for that Matthew. I read the Penguin editions of Caesar when at university as I couldn't afford to buy the Loeb editions which were offered by the university bookshop at a very high price. My tutor extolled the Loebs and tolerated SOME of the Penguins. The Penguin edition of Suetonius was fit only for the dustbin. Obviously there were some problems with the Caesars as well.

Graham, I hadn't heard of the book you mentioned before. I have a copy of 'Ancient Faces: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt', edited by Susan Walker and published by the British Museum.


Crispvs

[Arthes]

Greetings,
I have seen some of these portraits before, quite fascinating. What is that coming from the bottom in the right hand, lightning?
The paintings from Er Rubayat have a Centurion and Officer, who looks to be wearing a green cloak.
This belt is interesting [url:1fnbf8pb]http://portraits.fayoum.free.fr/fayoum/fayoum2b.php?imgport=5&img=0&mus=0&pas=7&dat=0&ori=9[/url]
and what he is holding, which looks like a vegetable of some kind, is probably what the other guy is holding
Regards