ROMAN PERIOD, CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D.

Plaster masks were used during the Roman period in Egypt as an alternative to other forms of funerary portraiture such as painted portraits on wood panels, cloth or cartonnage masks. These plaster masks "were extended to form part of the lid of a wooden coffin, on which the deceased appeared to recline as if on a bier, the hands folded on the chest and the head slightly raised. The painted plaster mask derived from pharaonic traditions, in the sense that the mask served as a substitute for the head of the deceased and a means of elevating him or her to important status, often reflected in the paintings and texts written on the mantle surrounding the head" (S. Walker and M. Bierbrier, Ancient Faces: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt, p. 131).