ABSTRACT
In Roman Egypt funerary portraiture was not limited to mummy portraits: an alternative genre developed where a portrait mask of painted clay or plaster was extended to form part of the lid of a wooden coffin, on which the deceased appeared to recline as if on a bier, the hands folded on the chest and the head slightly raised. The painted plaster masks derived from pharaonic traditions, in the sense that the mask served as a substitute for the head of the deceased and a means of elevating him or her to immortal status, often reflected in the paintings and texts written on the mantle surrounding the head. Like the gilded masks, the painted plaster masks appear to date from the earliest years of the Roman occupation of Egypt.
