Death's painters:: An interpretation of the portraits of El-Fayum in light of the religious, philosophical, and aesthetic ideas of late antiquity

In line with the theories of Panofsky, this article propounds an iconological analysis of the symbolic values of El-Fayum's paintings, in their cultural context. It shows that understanding the meaning of these works is required to take into account the diversity of religious, philosophical or aesthetic ideas at the time of the Roman domination of Egypt (initiation rites, hermetical writings, magical papyri or neoplatonic treatises). These influences can explain both the structural characteristics of the portraits and the spirituality of the painters themselves.