Mummy Mask
Date: Roman Period (1st century BCE-1st century CE)
Dimensions:
10 1/2 in. (26.7 cm)
Medium: painted stucco plaster
Place of Origin: Egypt
Classification: Mummies and Mummy Cases
Credit Line: Gift of Florence Scott Libbey
Object number: 1925.652
Label Text:When Egypt was a province of the Roman Empire, masks of painted plaster continued the ancient Egyptian tradition of funerary masks for mummies (see the earlier mask in this case). The masks were attached to the lid of a coffin so that the deceased looked as if they were reclining on a banquet couch. Many of these plaster portraits look like individual likenesses, but most probably represent types: child, old man, young soldier.
This mask represents a young man whose curly hair and short beard suggest that he died around 125–150 CE, when the Roman Emperor Hadrian made beards fashionable for the first time in hundreds of years.
This mask represents a young man whose curly hair and short beard suggest that he died around 125–150 CE, when the Roman Emperor Hadrian made beards fashionable for the first time in hundreds of years.
On view