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The death mask of 18th century sailor Richard Parker Golden funeral mask of Tutankhamun Posthumous portrait bust of Henry VII of England by Pietro Torrigiano, supposedly made using his death mask A death mask is a likeness (typically in wax or plaster cast ) of a person's face after their death , usually made by taking a cast or impression from ...
These death masks were taken from bodies and kept in a home altar. Besides wax, masks were made from bronze, marble and terracotta. The molds for the masks were made directly from the deceased, giving historians an accurate representation of typically Roman features.
Schliemann claimed that one of the masks he discovered was the mask of King Agamemnon, and that this was the burial site of the legendary king from Homer's Iliad. [4]The masks were likely direct representations of the deceased, symbolizing a continuation of the dead's identity in death, similar to funerary statues and incisions, immortalizing an idealized depiction of the deceased.
Nefertiti bust, from the 18th dynasty, New kingdom Egyptian death mask from the 18th dynasty. Louvre, Paris portrait of Meritamun, 19th dynasty of Egypt. Portraiture in ancient Egypt forms a conceptual attempt to portray "the subject from its own perspective rather than the viewpoint of the artist ... to communicate essential information about the object itself". [1]
Ancient Greek funerary vases were made to resemble vessels used for elite male drinking parties, called symposiums. Funerary vases were often painted with symposiums, or Greek tragedies that involved death. There are many types of funerary vases including amphorae, kraters, oinochoe, and kylix cups. Funerary scenes show us how the Greeks ...
John Bodel calculates an annual death rate of 30,000 among a population of about 750,000 in the city of Rome, not counting victims of plague and pandemic. [10] At birth, Romans of all classes had an approximate life expectancy of 20–30 years: men and women of citizen class who reached maturity could expect to live until their late 50's or much longer, barring illness, disease and accident. [11]
Some sources indicate these portraits were busts, while others suggest that funeral masks were also displayed. The masks, probably modeled of wax from the face of the deceased, were part of the funeral procession when an elite Roman died. Professional mourners wore the masks and regalia of the dead person's ancestors as the body was carried ...
Some scholars consider the ancient Roman custom of making wax portraits, a.k.a. funerary or death masks of their ancestors as a convincing source for the veristic style. H. Drerup argues that death masks molded straight from the face were used early in Rome, and exerted a ‘direct influence’ on Republican portraits.