Beaded Mummy Mask

£ 295.00

An Ancient Egyptian mummy mask made of small faience beads in turquoise, red, cream and dark blue. The beads have been restrung in their original arrangement. The face is highly stylised with large trapezoid eyes, long thin brows, a broad and undetailed nose and a small mouth with visible teeth. The mask would have been placed over the face of the deceased at their burial, in a similar manner to the better-known cartonnage mummy masks, mostly for decorative or protective purposes.

Date: Circa 664-332 BC
Period: Late Dynastic Period
Condition: Fine, restrung with original faience beads. Some beads might display signs of aging to the surface.

SOLD

Product Code: ES-60
Category: Tag:

Masks of this type rose to popularity in the Late Period of Ancient Egypt. Such masks likely had both a decorative and symbolic role as the burial of the dead in Ancient Egypt was an elaborate and ritualised process. Their unnaturalistic style and the similarity between beaded mummy masks in general make it unlikely that they were modelled after the face of the deceased individual and they were more likely generic images of a human face. Such masks have been also interpreted as visual representations of the god Osiris, due to their blue-greenish colour normally reserved for depictions of the dead god Osiris on the walls of the tombs.

Dimensions H 10.3 cm
Faience

Turquoise Faience

Region

North Africa

Egyptian Mythology

Osiris

Reference: For a similar item, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, item number 10060.