This head covering shows the deceased, Pedehorpasheriesi, whose name is given on the fillet that decorates the headdress. The lappets of the wig are decorated with panels that represent the figure of the mummified deceased appearing before the seated figure of Osiris, the god of Resurrection. At the top of the headdress is a winged scarab, and the fillet has a central solar disc.
The head covering was placed over the head and upper part of the mummified body and secured with bandages around the lower edge. Made of cartonnage – strips of linen layered and held together with glue and gesso – it has been shaped over a mummiform base and then painted and gilded. The eyebrows and the inlaid eyes incorporate coloured glass.
The work was made either during the Ptolemaic Period, when Egypt was ruled by the Greek-speaking Macedonian descendants of one of the generals of Alexander the Great, or during the period of Roman rule that followed the defeat of Cleopatra VII, last of the Ptolemies, in 30 BC. It complements the Gallery’s holdings of Roman Period mummy-portraits, illusionistically painted on panels of wood or cartonnage, which were attached to the mummy to serve a purpose similar to that of the head covering.
Margaret Legge