Mummy Mask of a Woman in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, June 2018

Mummy Mask of a Woman (Primary Title)

Unknown (Artist)

Date: ca. 130

Culture: Egyptian

Category: Sculpture

Medium: Plaster, glass, pigment

Collection: Ancient Art

Dimensions: Overall: 5 3/4 × 6 1/2 × 7 3/4 in. (14.61 × 16.51 × 19.69 cm)

Object Number: 2014.187


This beautiful, evocative face is not a true portrait but cast from a mold and individualized with glass eyes and pigment (which even highlights her eyebrows, eyelashes, and nostrils!). The head was originally attached to a mummy board placed over the deceased, an Egyptian tradition dating to the First Intermediate Period (ca. 2000 BC), but the hairstyle dates this example to the reign of Emperor Hadrian (117–138), when Egyptian-grown grain fed the Roman Empire.

Text from: www.vmfa.museum/piction/6027262-12999910