{"id":888,"date":"2026-07-20T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/2026\/07\/20\/mummy-mask-with-wig-a-1000-year-old-false-head-found-in-peru-that-was-crafted-with-real-human-hair-and-toxic-red-cinnabar\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T10:00:00","slug":"mummy-mask-with-wig-a-1000-year-old-false-head-found-in-peru-that-was-crafted-with-real-human-hair-and-toxic-red-cinnabar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/2026\/07\/20\/mummy-mask-with-wig-a-1000-year-old-false-head-found-in-peru-that-was-crafted-with-real-human-hair-and-toxic-red-cinnabar\/","title":{"rendered":"Mummy mask with wig: A 1,000-year-old 'false head' found in Peru that was crafted with real human hair and toxic red cinnabar"},"content":{"rendered":"
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QUICK FACTS<\/div>\n
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Name:<\/strong> Mummy mask with wig<\/p>\n

What it is: <\/strong>A carved wooden mask<\/p>\n

Where it is from: <\/strong>Peru<\/p>\n

When it was made:<\/strong> Circa 1000 to 1450<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This wooden mask, which is decorated with human hair and a textile headband, adorned an Andean mummy up to a millennium ago. Made by an artist of the Chancay people, the mask was also painted red with the mercury-containing pigment cinnabar.<\/p>\n

The Chancay were a pre-Inca<\/u><\/a> people who lived along the central coast of Peru in the Late Intermediate Period (1000 to 1450). A common tradition among the Chancay was the funerary bundle<\/u><\/a> \u2014 the end result of wrapping their dead in layers of textiles, vegetal material and animal skin. The bundle was then buried in a pit<\/u><\/a> along with grave goods such as tools, food and figurines. Because the bodies were usually wrapped in a fetal position, however, it was not always clear exactly where the head was located once the bundle was complete.<\/p>\n

According to The Walters Art Museum<\/u><\/a> in Baltimore, which has this mask in its collection, “false heads” made from textiles or wood were sometimes tied onto the Chancay funerary bundles to act as a focal point for venerating the ancestor.<\/p>\n

The mask is roughly life-size, measuring 12 by 8 inches (30.5 by 20.3 centimeters). Chancay funeral masks were not meant to be realistic. Instead, they had simplified features, such as the diamond-shaped eyes; triangular nose; and tiny, U-shaped smile on this mask. The wig was almost certainly made from human hair, according to a microscopic analysis The Walters Art Museum undertook in 2017.<\/p>\n

The Chancay artist who made the mask painted it red using cinnabar, a toxic substance that is the brick-red form of mercury sulfide. Cinnabar was frequently used in Andean funerary rituals<\/u><\/a>, and the color was associated with purification and commemoration rituals. But the mask was likely not placed on the outside of the bundle burial, as a patterned impression has been left on the cinnabar of this mask, probably from being wrapped in even more textiles, according to The Walters Art Museum.<\/p>\n

Although the Chancay culture is not as well known as the Inca, recent research into the ceramics the Chancay left behind<\/u><\/a> and the tattoos on their mummified ancestors<\/u><\/a> has revealed that they were a complex society with a high degree of artistic talent. <\/p>\n

For more stunning archaeological discoveries, check out our <\/em>Astonishing Artifacts<\/em><\/u><\/a> archives.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"aThe Stargazer<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"twoSleep and Death<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Can you put together last week’s Astonishing Artifact<\/u><\/a>?<\/p>\n

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QUICK FACTS Name: Mummy mask with wig What it is: A carved wooden mask Where it is from: Peru When it was made: Circa 1000 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}