ABSTRACT
While mummy portraits were unframed and painted on boards so thin as to make them unsuitable for use outside the mummy casing, framed panel paintings on much more substantial boards were also known in Roman Egypt. The pagan veneration of panel paintings is poorly documented in classical authors, but both Pausanias and Pliny refer to panels, pinakes in Greek or tabulae in Latin, that showed individual gods in non-narrative settings. The subjects of the surviving icons give an interesting profile of religion in late Roman Egypt. Heron is the most common, but a camel god, patron of caravans, and a number of equestrian figures also appear. These were the ‘saints’ from whom the Egyptians sought protection for themselves and their homes.
