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These aren't photographs. Skin color was often used for artistic purposes and to impart symbolic meaning. Egyptians in particular were conventionally depicted w
by AlotOfReading 4y ago
These aren't photographs. Skin color was often used for artistic purposes and to impart symbolic meaning. Egyptians in particular were conventionally depicted with reddish or yellowish skin to indicate life or vitality, with light blue or white highlights to showcase lighting and contours.
- wl 4y agoRed skin for men and yellow skin for woman is a convention of tomb paintings. Those are the stylized paintings on walls with the stereotypical technique of combining a side view and a frontal view into a single 2D representation. Mummy portraits belong to a different, later genre that is far less stylized and more realistic. The skin tones, in particular, are more true to life in mummy portraits than tomb paintings.