Dating

As Susan Walker notes, "Even in remote parts of the Roman Empire, attempts were made to follow imperial court fashions, and certain features of everyday life appear in astonishingly consistent form across the Empire at a given time." Thus, scholars can date a portrait to within a decade or so of its production just from looking at clues such as where a woman's hair is parted or what jewelry she is depicted wearing. Changes in fashion throughout the Roman period can thus be depicted through these portraits, yet another way in which they tell us about what life was like in Roman Egypt.