Two fragments of painted Roman funerary portraits on wooden panels of the Fayum type, discovered in 2001 during a revisiting of the Third Intermediate Period shaft tombs inside the Chapel of Hatshepsut in the Royal Mortuary Cult Complex at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Deir el-Bahari, come from 19th century excavations, hence are without anything but a general context. The pieces are very small—fragment of a robe, sliver of a face with one eye—but in a brilliant analysis of iconography and style Kiss identifies one as a depiction of a female, possibly a priestess of Isis, from the second half of the 2nd century AD, and the other as a male portrait from the 2nd century. The portraits may belong to what some scholars have called “Theban” painted funerary portraits and they must have come from a Roman necropolis in West Thebes, possibly Deir el-Medineh. On any case, they are proof that mummies with painted portraits of the deceased on wooden panels fitted into the cartonnages were not unknown in ancient Thebes.
Deux fragments de portraits funéraires romains de Deir el-Bahari