Mask (1–550 CE): Art, History and Details

Mask (1–550 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Many Teotihuacán masks were once tied to something via holes on the back--perhaps a body-shaped form dressed in garments, ornaments, and a headdress that identified the figure. The stone masks’ eyes and mouths once held inlays representing irises, pupils, and teeth.

Object facts

• Title: Mask
• Date: 1–550 CE
• Culture: Central Mexico, Teotihuacán style, Classic period
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: stone
• Dimensions: Overall: 13.4 x 12.8 x 6.7 cm (5 1/4 x 5 1/16 x 2 5/8 in.)
• Collection: AA - Mesoamerica
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1950.409

A detail from the museum

These stone masks have been found near temples, but not in homes or burials.

Collection credit

The Norweb Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Young-Sánchez, Margaret. "Veneration of the Dead: Religious Ritual on a Pre-Columbian Mirror-Back." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 77, no. 9 (1990): 326-51.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.