Detail of a Funerary Shroud with a Bearded Young Man in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 2008

Funerary Shroud with a Bearded Young Man
ca. 120-150 AD
Tempera on linen

Accession # 08.202.8

A young man with wide eyes and an incipient moustache stands before a dark gray background with a lighter gray area around his head. In his hand he holds a bundle of foliage, perhaps myrtle. To each side of his head is a figure of the falcon god Horus, alternately with the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt. Originally there were ladders of vignettes with deity figures at each edge; remains of a dark skinned god with a blue crown are preserved at left.

A hieroglyphic inscription at the top refers to the Egyptian god Horus the Behedite, imminent in the winged sun disk that originally topped the shroud; only the tips of some wing feathers are preserved in the upper left corner.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.