The Fayum Mummy Portrait that Looks So Familiar

I remember discovering the Fayum mummy portraits (as a reader, rather than the Jesuit priest who did uncover some of them back in 1615) and have returned to them time and time again.  It is fascinating that realistic images of the faces of people who died so long ago can still be seen by us today. Dating from around the 1st to the 3rd centuries AD, roughly c. 30 BC to AD 300, they were produced in the Fayum area of Roman Egypt, mainly during the early Roman Imperial period, and were attached to mummies as realistic painted likenesses of the deceased.

In this video, Alexandra Olsman, one of Sotheby’s specialists in ancient sculpture and works of art takes a look at one in particular (and I guess it’s up for sale, this video being by an art broker). Unlike many of the portraits, this particular chap is obviously middle-aged (the majority are of young adults and children).  It’s an honest “warts and all” picture but what Olsman does is answer a question that has intrigued many.  Were these portraits drawn before or after the death of the “sitter”?  The answer is a little more complex than you might expect – and, of course, based on a certain amount of guess work as we do not know who these people were, let alone how or when they died.

Watch this fascinating video below:

The Pyramids of Egypt

A dig outside of Cairo in 1920 and a single archaeologist, whose only company is a somewhat mystified camel, makes the discovery of a lifetime.  The secret of the ancients are about to be unlocked…

This very amusing animated short was created by the team of Nicolas Mrikhi, Corentin Charron, Olivier Lafay and Lise Corriol.  It was produced as a partnership between their university, Supinfocom Arles and the Museum of Marseille.

Sahara el Beyda: The White Desert of Egypt

The word sahara means desert in Arabic so when you hear the name Sahara el Beyda you could be forgiven that it means one thing – sand, sand and more sand.  Yet the sight of Egypt’s Sahara el Beyda belies the traditional way one imagines a desert.  Are those icebergs on the horizon?

Image Credit Flickr User walidhassanein

Egyptian Children Define Democracy

This is interesting – and prescient to say the very least. Don’t give up on it in the first minute; subtitles do kick in when the kids start talking. Last year Emad Attia Botros and his colleagues decided that they wanted to create a short film that would allow the young people of Egypt to talk about democracy so that it could be used to teach and educate their peers about what it means.

Children aged 7-16 were filmed and asked to tell stories to illuminate what they meant and to elaborate metaphorically on the concept. Interestingly one of them chose to talk about how the people in a village united together to overthrow their landlord who had been dictating to them the way in which they should live. Just a few months later in January and February of this year that is exactly what the people of Egypt did en masse.

Although it might be argued that this was scripted the way in which the children deliver their stories is, on the whole, far too spontaneous to be a learned piece. The whole short film is rather well done with animations used to illustrate the children’s’ stories.

As Egypt has a young population, these are the people who will be (democratically, one hopes) running the show in a few years. If these kids represent a cross section of Egyptian society then the future for the country is brighter than many suspect.

It did make me ponder. If I was to gather a similar group of European or American kids and ask them to define democracy would the answers they give be half as articulate as the ones we see here?

Victory of the Sheep

With events in North Africa and the Middle East seeming to spiral out of control it is worth taking a minute to reflect that only a couple of decades ago Eastern Europe was going through the throws of unburdening itself of a political system that had long outstayed it welcome or indeed its usefulness.


This short animation was commissioned by Antena 3 Television in Romania – who wanted to draw the attention of the populace to the dormant totalitarian influences still at large in the country.  Not only that it seeks to highlight the humiliating nature of the relationship between government and the working classes twenty years after the fall of communism in the country.

It does go to show that when a country like Romania becomes a democracy, the fight is not over – in fact it will carry on for tens of years.  A country does not wake up overnight able to completely change its regime and cast off the old in to the shadows forever.  This is something that the people of Egypt and others in the area will have to come to terms with very shortly.  The battle is won but the war is not over.

The software used included 3Ds Max, After Effects, Photoshop and the project was completed in 17 days including render times. The second in the series, below, warns the people of Romania to vote carefully, responsibly and to be aware of possible electoral fraud and political corruption.

Egypt: A Nation Forced Offline

The political situation in Egypt, where people are protesting against the virtual dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak, has meant that it has become the first country in the world to block all internet and cellular access.

This sorry state of affairs has come about for a variety of reasons. If you need your head refreshed as the build up to this enforced isolation from the rest of the world take a look at this timely animation by Michael Marantz. It takes the Tunisian explosion of demonstrations as its starting point and brings you up to date.

Let’s hope the people of Egypt can break themselves free from the shackles of truly repressive government in the very near future.