Funerary Mask
Late Ptolemaic Period-early Roman Period, 1st century BCE
Medium
Cartonnage, gold leaf, and pigment
Dimensions
46 × 33.3 × 28 cm (18 1/8 × 13 1/8 × 11 in.)
Classification
mummy goods
Department
Arts of Africa
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
64312
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Funerary masks protected the head and chest of a mummified body. They present an idealized version of the wearer, ensuring that they would continue to breathe, eat, hear, see, and speak in the next life. Preserving the body and its individual parts through mummification or depiction was essential to life after death in ancient Egypt. Potent symbols, such as the amulets shaped like anatomical hearts strung around the neck of the mask here, provided an extra layer of protection. For ancient Egypti...
About the Artist
Ancient Egyptian
Ancient Egyptian artists, a collective of highly skilled artisans spanning over three millennia from the Predynastic period (c. 6000–3150 BC) to the Roman era (30 BC–4th century AD), produced some of humanity's most enduring masterpieces. These anonymous craftsmen, often organized in state-sponsored workshops, lived in dedicated communities like Deir el-Medina near Luxor during the New Kingdom (c....