Mummy Portraits of Roman Egypt, Volume 2: Emerging Research from the APPEAR Project

Available February 2026

Edited by Marie Svoboda and Caroline Cartwright

This open-access publication presents new research on ancient Romano-Egyptian mummy portraits, including examinations of artifacts never previously studied.

Nearly a thousand funerary portraits from Roman Egypt, once interred with mummified remains, survive in museums around the world. These fascinating paintings offer the unparalleled opportunity for viewers to come face-to-face with people who lived and died some two thousand years ago.

The international collaboration known as APPEAR (Ancient Panel Paintings: Examination, Analysis, and Research) was launched in 2013 to promote the study of these objects and gather research findings in a shared database. This second volume of Mummy Portraits of Roman Egypt compiles seventeen scholarly papers from the APPEAR conference hosted in October 2022 at the Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam. Conservators, scientists, and curators presented new research on topics such as technical imaging; nondestructive analytical techniques; provenance and collecting; treatment histories; connoisseurship and forgeries; comparisons of works across institutions; and scientific studies of woods, pigments, coatings, binders, and supports. This volume will be a valuable resource to conservators, scientists, curators, and collectors.

The free online edition of this open-access publication will be available at getty.edu/publications/mummy-portraits-2/ and will include zoomable illustrations and graphs. Also forthcoming are free PDF and EPUB downloads of the book.

Marie Svoboda is conservator of antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum. She is coeditor of Mummy Portraits of Roman Egypt: Emerging Research from the APPEAR Project (Getty, 2020). Caroline Cartwright is senior scientist in the Department of Scientific Research at the British Museum. She is coeditor of Mummy Portraits of Roman Egypt: Emerging Research from the APPEAR Project (Getty, 2020).

360 pages
8 1/2 x 11 inches
267 color illustrations
ISBN 978-1-60606-996-7
paperback

Getty Publications
Imprint: J. Paul Getty Museum

2026