Funerary Mask 10th–12th century Lambayeque (Sicán) This mask, made of hammered sheet gold alloy and covered in red pigment, once adorned the body of a deceased ruler on Peru’s north coast. Powerful dynasties arose in this region between the eighth and the fourteenth centuries and amassed great riches in gold and silver before they were conquered by the Inca Empire in the late fifteenth century. The lords of these dynasties were the patrons of vast workshops where finely crafted ornaments and ceremonial vessels were created (see ; ). At death, the lords were buried deep

Funerary Mask 10th–12th century Lambayeque (Sicán) This mask, made of hammered sheet gold alloy and covered in red pigment, once adorned the body of a deceased ruler on Peru’s north coast. Powerful dynasties arose in this region between the eighth and the fourteenth centuries and amassed great riches in gold and silver before they were conquered by the Inca Empire in the late fifteenth century. The lords of these dynasties were the patrons of vast workshops where finely crafted ornaments and ceremonial vessels were created (see ; ). At death, the lords were buried deep in monumental mud-brick platform mounds along with large numbers of objects of precious metal, shell, and cloth. In addition to beakers, disks, and other ornaments, the burials included large masks made of sheet gold. As many as five masks were placed into one burial: one attached to the head of the textile-wrapped body, and the other four stacked at the feet of the mask was made of an alloy of 74 percent gold, 20 percent silver, and 6 percent copper which was then hammered into a sheet and shaped into the form of a face. Interestingly, cinnabar, a red mineral pigment, covers much of the cheeks and forehead of this mask, obscuring the gold surface. The cinnabar may emulate the patterning of face paint worn by individuals of importance: according to early colonial accounts a courtier was charged with the task of maintaining such paints. Faint traces of the textile wrappings that once enveloped the mummy bundle can be detected in impressions on the red paint. Masks in museum collections are often missing such surface embellishment (see ), as the pigment would have been removed in modern times to highlight the golden substrate. The eyes of this mask have thin, skewer-like projections emerging from the pupils, perhaps suggesting powerful or even piercing vision. In other masks these projections include small beads of amber and emerald, which have led

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