These images were originally posted on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website under The Collection Online. We have re-posted them here for educational purposes and in the interest of efficacy. Each image is also linked back to its original source if you’d like to find out more about the collection and the images themselves.
These are magnificently realistic and well-preserved portraits of persons in late1st-2nd century Alexandria. This is exactly the time period when Mark was composed and first proclaimed/told. And Alexandria is the place associated with the first performances of the Gospel of Mark by Eusebius and Coptic tradition. This may be how some of the people in the audiences of the original performances of Mark’s Gospel looked.
