Funeral Mask of ancient Romans were frighteningly realistic Bashny.Net

So the Romans imitated the presence of ancestors pohoronah



At the head of funeral processions in ancient Rome were professional mourners masked recently deceased ancestors. But as the masks were made of wax, none of them survived to the present day. Recently a group of archaeologists created a wax mask on the basis of their own people, and the results were stunning.

Wax in those days was a very expensive material. The researchers say that the choice of wax for the manufacture of masks was intended to express the differences between social classes. In addition, the wax allowed to re-create the mask is extremely realistic facial features and thus to the "replace" human.

But the experimenters found that the wax - a fairly sensitive and unstable material: after a while the "face" appear tiny pits and holes. In Roman times, the mask exposed to the external environment - air, fire, smoke - and therefore, probably, by the time the process becomes similar to the faces of the dead, not living people.

via factroom.ru