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When Alexander the Great took control of Egypt from the Persians in 323 B.C. and left it to the Ptolemies to rule, he made very few changes stylistically to Egyptian art. The iconography of this mummy’s mask is typically pharaonic: the wings and sun disc represent the scarab beetle, which Egyptians associated with the rising and setting sun and, hence, rebirth. The gold-colored face identifies the deceased with Osiris, the god of the underworld, who himself died and was reborn in the afterlife.



(back to top)

When Alexander the Great took control of Egypt from the Persians in 323 B.C. and left it to the Ptolemies to rule, he made very few changes stylistically to Egyptian art. The iconography of this mummy’s mask is typically pharaonic: the wings and sun disc represent the scarab beetle, which Egyptians associated with the rising and setting sun and, hence, rebirth. The gold-colored face identifies the deceased with Osiris, the god of the underworld, who himself died and was reborn in the afterlife.