What is a plaster 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 the corpse. Death masks may be mementos of the dead, or be used for creation of portraits.

When did they stop making death masks?

Death masks were used to preserve likeness of many different people, from the great and good, to criminals. The invention of photography has now made them unnecessary, although they were still being made until the 1930s.

Do people still make death mask?

Essentially, death masks aren’t really being made — forensic photography has made documenting the dead an easy and efficient process. However, as it concerns death masks to memorialize individuals in an artistic way — this is still going on. Only now it is called “lifecasting”.

What are Egyptian death masks?

A death mask was created so that the soul would recognise its body, and return to it safely. Death masks were also believed to help to guard a dead person from evil spirits in the afterlife. If the dead person was important, their mummified body would have been put into a special wooden coffin called a sarcophagus.

Why did people wear death masks?

Funerary masks were frequently used to cover the face of the deceased. Generally their purpose was to represent the features of the deceased, both to honour them and to establish a relationship through the mask with the spirit world.

What is a Victorian death mask?

They’re mostly death masks – plaster casts of the deceased kept as mementos or references for a portrait, etc. – but some were made while the person was still alive.

What is King Tut’s mask made of?

The death mask of Tutankhamun It is constructed of two sheets of gold that were hammered together and weighs 22.5 pounds (10.23 kg).

What was King Tut’s death mask used for?

Masks such as Tutankhamun’s were created to ceremoniously cover the face in grandeur and to allow the spirit to recognize the body after death.