ABSTRACT
The mummy portraits of Roman Egypt were the product of a fusion of two traditions, that of phar-aonic Egypt and that of the Classical world. Their style and technique derive from the latter, but their inclusion as part of the trappings of the embalmed body belongs firmly in the context of Egyptian funerary practices. The belief in a life after death was one of the most conspicuous features of the ancient Egyptian civilisation. It was a fundamental tenet of the Egyptians’ beliefs that, in order to become an akh, the individual had to survive death in both physical and spiritual forms. With the rise of Egypt as a unified state at the end of the fourth millennium Bc, burial customs began to reflect the hierarchical structure of Egyptian society more clearly.
