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Home > Art > Olmec Mask

Olmec Mask

A mask with naturalistic features, including an open mouth, carved-out eyes, and spool holes in the nose and ears.
Artist

Unknown Artist

Date

1100-500 BCE

Medium

Green jade with traces of reddish-brown

Object Type

Sculpture

Dimensions

H- 5 1/8 x W- 5 2/3 x D- 2 in. (13 x 14.3 x 5.1 cm)

Collecting Area

Pre-Columbian

Credit Line

The Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection

Accession Number

2005.02.1

Copyright

© The Vilcek Foundation

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jade Mask mexico Olmec stone
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A mask with naturalistic features, including an open mouth, carved-out eyes, and spool holes in the nose and ears.

About the Object

The life-sized Olmec face mask seen here was carved from light green jade with hints of brown pigments. The work’s naturalistic features—including an open mouth, carved-out eyes, and drill holes in the nasal cavities and ears—indicates that it was worn rather than used only as a death mask like many other Olmec face masks. It is therefore likely that it was donned by an elite individual during rituals. Given the color of the stone, such rites were probably connected to cycles of agriculture, birth, death, and rebirth associated with fertility and the afterlife.

 

Additional Information

This style is linked with Olmec jade masks found in the state of Veracruz, Mexico. This was one of the heartlands of Olmec culture, which greatly influenced later Mesoamerican styles and representations of spirituality, power, architecture, agriculture, and cosmology or ideas about the universe. These include the Maya, Mezcala-Chontal, Mixtec, and Mexica (Aztecs or Triple Alliance).

[Throckmorton Fine Art, New York, NY];

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jade Mask mexico Olmec stone
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