For those of you interested in the paintings on the cover of The Ephesus Scroll, this post is for you!

Both portraits on the front cover come from Roman funerary paintings – also known as mummy portraits – dated to the second century AD.  The portrait of the man is in the Manchester Museum.  (There is a great article about this particular portrait here.)  In full, he looks like this:

Some people have noted that this man bears a striking resemblance to me.  That is entirely coincidental!  It is supposed to be how Loukas, the main character in the first century time-line of the novel, might have looked like.

The portrait of the woman is in the British Museum.  (This link should take you to her page.)  In full, she looks like this:

To be honest, she looks a bit old to be Iounia (who I imagined was in her late teens.)  But once you crop, you can’t tell!  I also had to smooth out some of the cracks (the one on her nose was a little distracting!)    And then both faces were cropped and joined together to create what I hoped would be an evocative image:

The painting on the back comes from here, painted by a St. Petersburg artist from the “Artemis” group.  This one was also cropped (to match the size and shape of the image on the front cover).  In full, it looks like this:

Finally, if I am being complete, I should also mention that the scroll fragment on the front cover is actually from a New Testament Greek translation (also known as the Septuagint) of the book of Joshua, dated to approximately 200 AD.  It is known as MS 2648.  (For more details see here.)