Mask

With its smoothly angled forehead and precisely rendered features, this face defines the appearance of a city dweller in Teotihuacan. Although we call these objects masks, they were not designed to be worn by individuals. Little is known about their original function. They may have been attached to ancestral funerary bundles. The drillholes visible in the eyes and mouth once provided the support for shell and bone inlays carved to resemble eyes and teeth. When complete, the face must have seemed strangely alive—like flesh made permanent in stone. Although they are not portraits in the strictest sense, no two are exactly alike. They may have helped transform individual identities into a broader civic ideal.