Funeral mask: A 2,000-year-old gold face covering designed to confuse the deceased's spirit so it didn't torment the living

A prehistoric gold funeral mask from Java. (Image credit: Yale University Art Museum ( CC0 1.0 Universal )) QUICK FACTS Name: Funeral mask What it is: A gold mask with a humanlike face Where it is from: Java, Indonesia When it was made: Between 500 B.C. and A.D.

200 This gold mask was made on the Indonesian island of Java around two millennia ago and was likely used to cover the face of a corpse, possibly with the aim of "confusing" the deceased's spirit so that it did not torment the living.

According to the Yale University Art Gallery , which has the prehistoric artifact in its collection, the mask measures roughly 8.9 by 6.7 inches (22.6 by 17 centimeters) and weighs about 2.1 ounces (60.9 grams).

The mask has openings at the mouth, eyes and nostrils, along with slits and slashes representing eyebrows, eyelashes and teeth.

A series of holes punched around the edge of the mask suggests that it was once attached to a corpse or funeral statue, archaeologist John Miksic wrote in a book titled " Old Javanese Gold " (Yale University Press, 2011).

To create the mask, an ancient artisan would have procured high-purity gold from the nearby islands of Sumatra or Borneo, hammered the metal into a thin sheet roughly the size and shape of a human face, and then cut the incisions with a chisel, Miksic wrote.

Because of the simple technique used to create the mask, Miksic dated the artifact to Java's Preclassic period (500 B.C. to A.D.

200).

During this era, prehistoric Javanese people inhumed their dead, before they switched to cremation in the following period.

Gold face coverings were therefore most likely part of a prehistoric burial tradition, Miksic noted.

The custom of using gold to cover part or all of the deceased's face has been found in prehistoric India, China and other parts of Southeast Asia, according to Miksic, coinciding with inhumation burials made just before the advent of cremation.

But it is unclear whether one culture learned the practice from another or if it was invented independently.

Other gold death masks predate the Asian examples, including the famous 3,500-year-old Mask of Agamemnon from Bronze Age Greece.

Scholars have argued about whether Javanese gold death masks were meant to be realistic or idealized versions of the deceased.