ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE BIBLE

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FAYUM PORTRAITS

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The Fayum (or Fayyûm) portraits were made during the period from the 1st to the 4th century AD. Found in Egyptian tombs particularly at the oasis of al-Fayyûm, they showed the head and shoulders of the dead person, and were painted on wooden tablets using tempera or pigments mixed with liquid beeswax. They were placed on the outer coffin (see below right). They give a good idea of what wealthy Middle Eastern people looked like a century or so after the death of Jesus.

Strictly speaking, they were painted outside the biblical period, at the time the Gnostic gospels were being written in the 2nd century AD. Gnostic Christian sects had developed their own theology about Jesus, based on the idea that all matter was evil and only things of the spirit were good - which meant, to their way of thinking, that Jesus couldn't really have had a human body (matter) and therefore could not really have died.

RELATED WEBSITES - photographs, reconstructions, ideas

BIBLE ARCHAEOLOGY: TOMBS AND CATACOMBS 
Houses of the dead in biblical times

WOMEN IN THE BIBLE: MAJOR EVENTS: DEATH AND BURIAL 
Customs relating to care of a dead family member

BIBLE ART: MARTHA AND MARY
Paintings of Lazarus emerging from the tomb