Masks Before Masks: A Diffusionist History of the Ritual Face

TL;DR

• The earliest securely dated masks are Levantine stone masks (PPNB, ca. 9th–8th millennium BCE) and plaster-modeled skulls from Jericho and Nahal Hemar—material anchors of an ancestor cult that make the “face” a ritual technology. Israel Museum, Face to Face (2014); British Museum on the Jericho skull.
• Monogenesis thesis (symbolic hearth): a Near Eastern “face-cult” blooms alongside the Neolithic symbolic revolution (Cauvin) and diffuses with early farmers, radiating mask-forms and functions into Egypt, the Aegean, and beyond. Cauvin, The Birth of the Gods (2000).
• Across regions, masks converge on three functions—representation, identification, dissimulation—a portable grammar that travels better than styles (Pernet). Pernet, Ritual Masks (1992/2006).
• Cult archaeology frames how sacred gear spreads with sanctuaries, guilds, and itinerant specialists (Renfrew); house-shrine ecologies (Hodder) show face-making embedded in domestic ritual economies. Renfrew, The Archaeology of Cult (1985); Hodder, “Human–Thing Entanglement” (2011).
• Later ethnographic “explosions” (Egúngún, Sande, Malagan, Noh, Hopi katsinam) recompose the same grammar—ancestor-presence, spirit-vehicle, initiation—rather than invent masking ex nihilo. Museum and field monographs converge here (see Sources).

A Single Hearth: Stone Faces and Plastered Ancestors#

The oldest recognizably wearable masks yet found are carved limestone faces from the Judean Desert and Hills (PPNB, c. 9000–8000 BCE). Many show drill-holes around their rims—impractical as portraiture, practical as attachments to heads, poles, or walls—suggesting use in procession or shrine display. The Israel Museum assembled eleven of these in Face to Face: The Oldest Masks in the World; their individuality is striking, each a specific “someone” rather than an abstract type. Israel Museum exhibition overview; IMJ object record, Nahal Hemar mask.

In the same cultural corridor, Jericho yielded plaster-modeled skulls with shell-inlaid eyes—literal fusions of bone and face, interred beneath house floors, then curated, displayed, perhaps periodically “re-faced.” They are not worn, but they instantiate the face as a portable, durable ritual medium: an ancestor you can lift. The British Museum has published both technical and interpretive work on one such head, dating to c. 8200–7500 BCE. BM blog: new discoveries on the Jericho skull; BM object record.

Nearby Nahal Hemar Cave—a ritual cache in the Judean Desert—produced an anomalously rich set of plaster artifacts (including masks) and organic coatings (collagen- and plant-based), the latter among the earliest engineered adhesives known; textiles and headgear fragments point to costume ensembles. Solazzo et al., Sci. Reports (2016); Research on Nahal Hemar artifacts.

From here the trail extends into Anatolia: plastered skulls at Köşk Höyük and Çatalhöyük situate the “facing of the dead” within the North Levant–Central Anatolian Neolithic network. Schmandt-Besserat, “The Plastered Skulls” (2013); Özbek 2009, Journal of Archaeological Science (abs.); Çatalhöyük project notes. Even Göbekli Tepe and allied PPN sites have miniature mask-like faces and a “larger-than-life” specimen; Dietrich & Notroff discuss these as part of an early mask repertoire. DAI, “Behind the Mask” (2018).

Thesis: In this corridor, masking emerges as a new social technology—a way to make the dead present and to license human–other identifications (ancestors, animals, gods). Once invented, it diffuses with people, priests, and paraphernalia.

Cauvin’s symbolic revolution sharpened this: the Neolithic is not just economic—it’s a mental reformatting where “gods are born,” then economies follow. Face-making sits naturally in that sequence. Cauvin (2000); review symposium in Cambridge Archaeological Journal (2001) with Hodder, Rollefson, Bar‑Yosef](https://www.academia.edu/16386387/The_Birth_of_the_Gods_and_the_Origins_of_Agriculture_by_Jacques_Cauvin_translated_by_Trevor_Watkins_New_Studies_in_Archaeology_Cambridge_Cambridge_University_Press_2000_ISBN_0_521_65135_2_hardback_37_50_and_59_95_Reviewed_by_Ian_Hodder_Gary_O_Rollefson_Ofer_Bar_Yosef_with_a_response_by_).

A portable grammar#

Across time, masks stabilize around three functions—representation (making a face present), identification (authorizing a role), dissimulation (veiling ordinary identity)—a triad Henry Pernet synthesized from a century of ethnography. Treat them as a grammar that different cultures recompose with local sounds. Pernet (1992/2006); cf. Frontisi-Ducroux’s summary](https://journals.openedition.org/terrain/4497?lang=en).

Earliest Horizons (select)#

Dating is conservative; the Levantine evidence is earliest and densest for both masks and “faced” ancestors.

Vectors and Recompositions#

Cult itineraries. As Renfrew argued, “cult” leaves comprehensible archaeological signatures—installations, paraphernalia, dedicated rooms—whose packages can diffuse with people and prestige. The Levant–Anatolian Neolithic supplies the kit: lime-plaster tech, face-modeling, shrine-facing. Renfrew, The Archaeology of Cult (1985).

Domestic entanglements. Hodder’s work at Çatalhöyük shows rituals entangled with house maintenance (plastering, painting, ancestor interment). The face is not just a prop; it’s an infrastructure node in the household economy. Hodder 2011, JRAI; Hodder 1999, British Academy.

From this base, three large recompositions recur.

1) Funerary–Ancestral recomposition#

• Egypt: Priests in Anubis masks officiate over transformation rites; funerary masks (cartonnage/gold) secure identity and god-likeness in the afterlife. Kelsey Museum, Faces of Immortality; Egypt Museum—Anubis mask; Smithsonian—mummies primer.
• Aegean–Greek: The Mycenaean “masks” (e.g., so‑called “Agamemnon”) are funerary. Later, in the Dionysiac complex, prosōpon becomes stage instrument—ritual theatre grows from cult. Oxford reference on tragedy; Pronomos Vase iconography.
• Siberia (Tashtyk): Plaster death masks cover mummified heads—an echo of plastered skulls, but now in an Iron Age steppe idiom. Archaeology feature.

2) Initiatory–Societal recomposition#

• West Africa: Egúngún brings ancestors in motion; Sande (Mende) guards female initiation with sowei/bundu masks—the rare case of women wearing full-face ritual masks. Guggenheim on Egúngún; NMAfA on Sande masks.
• Americas (Iroquoian): The False Face Society uses carved visages in healing; the mask is not theatrical but operative. National Museum of the American Indian.

3) Theophanic–Shamanic recomposition#

• NW Coast (Kwakwaka’wakw): Transformation masks articulate animal–human crossings mid‑dance; the hinge literally performs ontology. UBC MOA.
• Oceania (New Ireland / New Britain): Malagan and Baining masks structure funerary cycles and nocturnal fire dances; the mask–costume suite reorganizes social memory. Met on Malagan; Peabody on Baining.
• East Asia: Nuo expels pestilence with exorcistic masks; Nō crystallizes a high-liturgical mask aesthetic—less possession, more controlled epiphany. University of Hawai‘i Press—Nuo overview; WorldHistory.org on Nō.

Outliers and negations#

• Teotihuacan masks were not worn—they mount to walls or bundles—yet they perform presence in the same grammar (representation without identification). Met curator essay.

A Diffusionist Synthesis (with older voices)#

The comparativists saw this early. Tylor read masking as a corollary of animism; Frazer, amid his ritual catalogs, grasped masks as licensed substitutions—the god/ancestor “rides” the wearer. Tylor, Primitive Culture (1871; IA); Frazer, The Golden Bough (1890–1915; Gutenberg). Andrew Lang and Marett added, respectively, myth–ritual feedback and pre‑animist mana—a force that masks condense. Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion (1887); Marett, The Threshold of Religion (1909).

Campbell reframed it as the “masks of God”: culture after culture, the face is a portal—a domesticated storm of the numinous. Campbell, The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology (1959/1969).

Modern fieldwork tightened the screws: Pernet gave us a crisp functional schema; Renfrew supplied a cult-diffusion toolkit in archaeology; Hodder anchored ritual within house economies. Cauvin then supplied the mental-archaic thrust—symbol first, bread later—matching the Levantine priority of masks and faced skulls.

Bias for monogenesis (stated): If one must choose, the Levantine PPN presents the earliest durable and diverse face‑technologies with clear ancestral and cultic contexts; subsequent elaborations look like recompositions of that grammar. Independent inventions surely exist, but the weight of the earliest record and the continuity of functions argue for a single seed carried far.

Mechanisms of Spread (how faces travel)#

1. Lineages & Lodges: initiatory societies transmit both rites and gear; secrecy favors package diffusion (mask + choreography + song).
2. Cultic labor markets: priests, healers, and performers migrate to frontier towns and palaces; they carry iconic technology (masks, drums).
3. Material affordances: once you have lime-plaster, cartonnage, or bentwood, specific mask forms become cheap to replicate.
4. Theatre as state liturgy: Dionysiac theatres, Nō stages, and court ballets co‑opt spirit‑masks into civic calendars.

FAQ#

Q1. Where is the earliest wearable mask horizon?
A. The Judean Desert/Hills: carved stone masks with suspension holes (PPNB, c. 9000–8000 BCE), alongside plastered skulls in the same ritual sphere—Levant first. Israel Museum; British Museum—Jericho.

Q2. Did Greek theatre masks descend from ancestor masks?
A. Direct lines are unprovable, but Dionysiac cult masks sit in a Mediterranean where funerary/theophanic masks already circulate; theatre formalizes a known grammar (representation–identification–dissimulation). Oxford ref. on tragedy; Pronomos Vase.

Q3. Are there non-Levantine inventions?
A. Yes (e.g., NW Coast transformation masks, Malagan cycles), but they converge on the same ritual functions; diffusion does not preclude creative recombination. UBC MOA; Met Malagan.

Q4. Why are Teotihuacan “masks” not worn?
A. They’re designed for mounting, likely to embody presence in shrines/bundles—representation sans identification—an elegant variation on the core grammar. Met curator essay.

Footnotes#

Sources#

Levantine & Anatolian foundations

• Israel Museum. “Face to Face: The Oldest Masks in the World.” Exhibition materials including PPNB stone masks (2014).
• British Museum. “What lies beneath: new discoveries about the Jericho skull.” 2014; and Jericho Skull object record (PPNB).
• Solazzo, C. et al. “Identification of the earliest collagen‑ and plant‑based coatings from Neolithic artefacts (Nahal Hemar cave, Israel).” Scientific Reports 6 (2016): 31053.
• Schmandt‑Besserat, D. “The Plastered Skulls.” In Symbolism in Prehistory (2013).
• Özbek, M. “Remodeled human skulls in Köşk Höyük.” Journal of Archaeological Science 36.2 (2009): 423–430 (abstract).
• Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. “Behind the Mask: Early Neolithic miniature masks…” (2018).
• Hodder, I. “Human–Thing Entanglement.” JRAI 17 (2011): 154–177; and “Symbolism at Çatalhöyük.” (1999).

Programmatic works (diffusion, ritual, symbol)

• Cauvin, J. The Birth of the Gods and the Origins of Agriculture. Cambridge (2000).
• Renfrew, C. The Archaeology of Cult: The Sanctuary at Phylakopi. BSA Suppl. 18 (1985).
• Pernet, H. Ritual Masks: Deceptions and Revelations. Univ. South Carolina Press (1992); reprint Wipf & Stock (2006).
• Campbell, J. The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology. Viking (1959/1969).
• Tylor, E. B. Primitive Culture. (1871).
• Frazer, J. G. The Golden Bough. (1890–1915).
• Lang, A. Myth, Ritual, and Religion. (1887).
• Marett, R. R. The Threshold of Religion. (1909).

Regional recompositions

• Egypt: Kelsey Museum. “Faces of Immortality.”; Egypt Museum on Anubis masks; Smithsonian, “Egyptian Mummies.”
• Greece/Aegean: Oxford Research Encyclopedia, “Tragedy, Greek.”; Getty, Pots & Plays.
• Eurasian Steppe: Archaeology Magazine, “Masks of the Dead.”
• West Africa: Guggenheim, Egúngún ensemble; NMAfA, Sande sowei/bundu masks.
• Oceania: Met, Malagan mask; Harvard Peabody, Baining mask.
• East Asia: University of Hawai‘i Press, Chinese Ritual Masks (Nuo); WorldHistory.org, “Japanese Nō Theatre.”
• Americas: Met, Hopi katsina masks; NMAI, Iroquois False Face Society; Met, Teotihuacan masks (not worn).