Egypt’s Fayoum mummy portraits to travel abroad for first time after restoration

Egypt has unveiled a restored version of the "Tondo of the Two Brothers," a prized 2nd-century painting from the Fayoum portraitsCAIRO -- Egypt unveiled Sunday a restored version of the “Tondo of the Two Brothers,” a prized 2nd-century painting from the famed Fayoum portraits.Specialists from Rome worked alongside conservators from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir — where the collection is usually kept — for three weeks to restore the artwork, officials said at a press conference. Fayoum mummy portraits were painted primarily on thin wooden panels and placed over the faces of the deceased within mummy wrappings, combining Egyptian funerary traditions with artistic influences from the wider Greco-Roman world.Egypt will lend a major part of the collection to a temporary exhibition in Rome, marking the first time it will travel abroad.“The restoration of the Tondo of the Two Brothers is an important example of what can be achieved through international cooperation in the preservation and study of cultural heritage,” said Sherif Fathy, Egypt’s minister of tourism and antiquities. “Egypt and Italy share deep historical and cultural ties, and this project brings together Egyptian and Italia...