Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Archaeology - Department of Conservation

The thesis is composed of four main chapters, in addition to a literature review. With an introduction for the materials of encaustic mural paintings, the chapter discusses the different hypothesis regarding the encaustic paintings and its technique of execution, which has been a subject of disagreement between many scholars from the beginning of the twentieth century. The chapter includes the different information listed by the researchers since the classical resource in 1787 until our recent times; including discussion of the controversy of the molten and punic wax usage. This chapter deals also with the materials used for the encaustic technique, mainly the types of the pigments, and the theory of the presence of different local workshops for the encaustic painting tradition, as well as the tools. The information regarding both the pigments and the tools were not only extracted and concluded from the results of the recent studies for the encaustic examples from Egypt, but also includes a survey for information extracted from a corpus of ancient Greek papyri. These mainly represent contracts and memorandums of the artist, where they describe different details of their work, including the pigments, tools, motives and prices of the execution. This information is compared with our information as well as tools marks observed on the surface of the encaustic paint layers

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