Olmec-style mask, c. 1200–400 B.C.E., found in offering 20 buried c. 1470 C.E. at the Mexica Templo Mayor, jadeite, 4 x 3-3/8 x 1-1/4 inches (Museo del Templo Mayor, Mexico City; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
When you think of masks, do you think of Halloween (either the holiday or the classic horror film)? Perhaps you envision theatrical performances, such as The Lion King, where masks and other elements of costume transform human actors into a cast of colorful birds and animals. When you think of masks in the history of art, perhaps you call to mind the famous Death Mask of Tutankhamun, or the incredible and varied masks of sub-Saharan Africa, such as the Elephant Mask of the Bamileke people in Cameroon. Masks may seem so ubiquitous in human history that we give them little thought. Yet their presence can speak to the negotiations between the visible and invisible, the past and the present, who we are and who we wish to be.
To conceal or reveal?
As representations of the face or head, masks are bound up with expressions of identity. They possess the ability to both transform the wearer into another being (human, animal, or spirit) and to reveal some aspect of the performer that might otherwise be concealed. For example, in the film Halloween the character Michael Meyers wears a blank mask to hide his face, allowing viewer to project terror onto his blank visage, while simultaneously revealing his soulless persona as an inhuman monster.
Masks are integrated into costume and regalia as part of dressing the body for ritual, performance, and even burial. Some are recovered from ancient tombs (for example, the Death Mask of Tutankhamun), while others are stored and used from one performance to the next or discarded once they have served their purpose. Still others are kept as precious heirlooms that connect generations and cultural traditions over long spans of time.
Burying the past
In Mexico City, once the capital city of the Aztec—or Mexica—Empire known as Tenochtitlán, archaeologists recovered a mask that linked two cultures across millennia. Excavations at the Mexica Templo Mayor revealed an offering containing an ancient mask. Its style links it to an older artistic tradition called Olmec, dating its creation to the period between 1200 and 350 B.C.E., some 2000 years before it was deposited in the Templo Mayor as an offering. This gap in time suggests that either the mask was passed down through many generations or perhaps that it was recovered by the Mexica from some ancient ruins.
Olmec-style mask, c. 1200–400 B.C.E., found in offering 20 buried c. 1470 C.E. at the Mexica Templo Mayor, jadeite, 4 x 3-3/8 x 1-1/4 inches (Museo del Templo Mayor, Mexico City; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The mask was deftly sculpted of a mottled greenstone that was then polished to a high sheen and has several hallmarks of the Olmec art style, including the cleft in the middle of the head, the almond-shaped eyes, and the sensitively modeled lips with markedly down-turned corners, which are parted to reveal an upper row of teeth. These elements are among the stylistic markers that spread far and wide during the Formative period, appearing as far east as Guerrero on the Pacific Coast, as far north as Morelos, and even extending south to present day Costa Rica. We do not know where exactly the mask was carved, although the material and certain stylistic features (such as the rectilinear flanges on either side of the head) suggest this was probably a regional variation of the Olmec style originating in southcentral or southwestern Mexico.
Olmec-style mask, c. 1200–400 B.C.E., found in offering 20 buried c. 1470 C.E. at the Mexica Templo Mayor, jadeite, 4 x 3-3/8 x 1-1/4 inches (Museo del Templo Mayor, Mexico City; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
San Martín Pajapan Monument 1 (drawing by Randall Felker, owned by author) © Randall Felker
The mask as ornament
Notice the small size of the mask (4 x 3-3/8 x 1-1/4 inches) and the solid stone of the deeply drilled eyes. These features tell us that the mask was not created to be worn on the face of a performer. Rather, this was likely worn as an ornament or part of the regalia worn by members of the elite. The precious greenstone was a luxury material associated with high rank in ancient Mesoamerica. Olmec-style masks (or maskettes) appear to have been incorporated into headdresses, belt ornaments, ear ornaments, and pectorals (for example, the mask on the frontispiece of the headdress worn by the San Martín Pajapan figure, who also sports maskette ear ornaments). Some larger masks without eye holes may also have been used as funerary masks to cover the faces of the honored dead, like those known from later royal burials associated with the Classic Maya kingdoms (for example, the jade death mask of the Maya king K’inich Janaab Pakal).
Olmec-style mask, 900–300 B.C.E., jadeite, 20.64 x 17.78 x 10.8 cm (Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.)
Other masks were clearly made to be worn in costumed performances, such as the greenstone mask of a supernatural being currently held in the Dumbarton Oaks Museum in Washington, D.C. This mask, also carved in the Olmec style, has an interior sculpted to conform to the contours of a human face. The striking eyes—rubbed with a contrasting red pigment—are pierced to allow the masked performer to see, although it undoubtedly limited the performer’s field of vision. Drilled nostril holes facilitated breathing. While many Olmec greenstone masks in private collections are of questionable authenticity (modern fakes are common), the ancient provenance of the mask at Dumbarton Oaks is supported by an extensive historical record dating back to the 16th century, when it was misattributed it to the Shang dynasty of ancient China.
Xoc petroglyph, c. 1200–600 B.C.E. (Chiapas, Mexico), limestone, 2.2 m high (Regional Museum of Anthropology and History of Chiapas; photo: Jill Mollenhauer, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The Dumbarton Oaks mask resembles the features of a supernatural creature incised on a rocky outcropping looted from the site of Xoc in Chiapas, Mexico. Was the mask meant to transform the wearer into this same supernatural being? Or do the deep incisions around the Xoc figure’s face indicate that it represents a masked performer, rather than the creature itself? If so, this petroglyph represents the ancient roots of deity impersonation in Mesoamerica, a ritual practice also performed by later cultures such as the Maya and Mexica. Deity impersonators embody and manifest the divine through the medium of performance, bringing the invisible realm of the supernatural into the visible space of human ritual. While some masks, such as the one from Dumbarton Oaks, clearly represent the otherworldly features of spiritual entities, others have markedly human features, perhaps representing culture heroes or historical figures.
Mask from Río Pesquero, Veracruz, c. 900–400 B.C.E., jadeite, 13.7 x 12 x 8 cm (Museo de Antropología de Xalapa)
The mask as offering
The inclusion of the Olmec mask in the offerings of the Templo Mayor follows a long-standing tradition of including masks in ritual deposits that extended back thousands of years in Mesoamerica. For example, a set of six Olmec greenstone masks was recovered in 1969 from the riverbed of the Río Pesquero in southern Veracruz. They were among two-thousand objects, including celts and figurines, that were deposited as offerings in the river during the Formative period. Like the mask from the Templo Mayor, they ended their use “lives” as part of a larger offering of precious objects, although their location was likely a sacred site within the natural landscape, as opposed to a temple structure.
Incised mask from Río Pesquero, Veracruz, c. 900–400 B.C.E., jadeite, 15.5 x 15 x 8 cm (Museo de Antropología de Xalapa; photo: Jill Mollenhauer, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The most striking of these masks also include esoteric designs etched into the surface of their otherwise naturalistically modeled features. Like the Lord of Las Limas sculpture, this layering of barely-visible abstract symbolism over three-dimensionally modeled features is a quintessential characteristic of Olmec art. This collection includes masks that were probably meant to be worn on the face and others that may have served as funerary masks or parts of regalia, based on their size and the presence of eye holes (or lack thereof).
Mask, c. 800 B.C.E. (Guerrero, Mexico), wood with inlaid jade (American Museum of Natural History, New York; photo: Jill Mollenhauer, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Mask media
While the most precious masks from the Formative were produced in greenstone, the primary luxury material of the elite classes, other masks from this period have been found sculpted in clay and wood. Among the most famous of these is a wooden mask recovered in 1931 from the Cañón de la Mano in the state of Guerrero, now located in the American Museum of Natural History. The wood of the mask is remarkably preserved. Its smoothly polished surfaces were incised with curvilinear designs and inlaid with pieces of blue-green jade. Like the mask from Dumbarton Oaks, its modeled interior suggests it was actually worn in performance. Additionally, ceramic masks (whole or in pieces) have been recovered from archaeological excavations at Early Formative sites such as La Consentida in Oaxaca and Tlatilco in the Valley of Mexico. At Tlatilco these were often recovered from burials, suggesting the long history of their use as adornments for the dead.
Ayax Moreno, illustration of the Oxtotitlán C-1 Mural from Guerrero, Mexico, c. 900 B.C.E. (New World Archaeological Foundation)
The masqueraders
Along with the masks themselves, a great variety of art from Mesoamerica’s Formative period is given over to masked figures engaged in in performance, or masquerade, a ritual or ceremonial practice which appears in the archaeological record as early as 1700 B.C.E. These masks vary widely in form, from those covering the entire head to buccal masks that cover only the lower part of the face. For example, a vibrant Olmec-style painting or mural above the mouth of the Oxtotitlán cave in Guerrero shows a ruler seated on a throne with arms outstretched. The figure wears an owl costume, complete with a helmet mask that covers his face (note that the eye of the owl was once inlaid with some now-lost material, such as obsidian or pyrite). The viewer is presented with an “X-ray” view that shows the human performer within the structure of the mask.
Left: Tuxtla Statuette, 162 C.E., jadeite, 15.4 x 9.3 cm (National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C.); right: Altar 7, La Venta, Tabasco, Mexico, c. 900–350 B.C.E., basalt (photo: Jill Mollenhauer, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Bird-themed masks seem to have been particularly popular early in Mesoamerican history, as shown by the Oxtotitlán mural and the slightly later Tuxtla Statuette, dated to 162 C.E. This figure wears a duck-billed mask on the lower half of his face. A similar mask is believed to cover the face of the damaged central figure in the niche on Altar 7 from the Olmec site of La Venta in Tabasco, which dates from 900–350 B.C.E.
Performing past and present
In paint, clay, wood, and stone, masks (both real and represented) appear throughout the Formative period in Mesoamerica—a testament to their cultural importance as markers of identity. Masks can both reveal and transform the wearer, manifest the sacred and ancestral forces, tell stories, and connect generations. Masks continued to be made and used throughout Mesoamerica over the following millennia, appearing in regalia, in burials, and ceremonial performance. Today, masked performances continue to bring together communities throughout Latin America. From Guelaguetza in Oaxaca to the Dances of the Conquest and the Rabinal Achí among modern Maya communities of Highland Guatemala, masquerade continues to be a vital cultural practice, rooting and reforming contemporary identities in relation to the ancient traditions of the Indigenous past.
