Survivor of a disaster
Picture this. For thousands of years the ancient Nubian city of Faras, on the border of Egypt and Sudan, was a major centre of trade and culture. Numerous artists were at work there and in the 8th century one of them made this drawing on a wall: a portrait of St Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary. Then, in 1960, the city disappeared completely when it was flooded by Lake Nasser. Right before it happened major excavations were undertaken by a team of Polish archeologists. This expressive face was taken from the wall and brought to Poland, where it still resides. The gentle touch of her finger seems to express astonishment: spared a life in the deep, she is now one of the few remains of a millennia-old culture.
Pic: Warsaw, National Museum (source).