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© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo by Michael McKelvey.
Death Transformation Mask
© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo by Michael McKelvey.
© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo by Michael McKelvey.
© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo by Michael McKelvey.
ClassificationsArt of the Americas

Death Transformation Mask

Place CreatedCosta Rica, North America
CultureGreater Nicoya
PeriodPeriod IV
Date1-500 CE
MediumCeramic
Credit LineEx coll. William C. and Carol W. Thibadeau
Dimensions6 1/4 x 4 1/2 x 1 1/2 in. (15.9 x 11.4 x 3.8 cm)
Object number1991.004.539
Label TextThis very rare flat mask is one of a pair in the Michael C. Carlos collection which constitutes half of the known corpus of Costa Rican ceramic death masks, the other two being in the collection of the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica. They are too small to have been worn in life, but could have been attached to a mummy bundle or laid directly over the deceased. Yet these examples contain revealing details that suggest we place them outside the usual funerary or death mask categories because of their concern with the process of dying itself. These masks depict a state somewhere between life and death by documenting aspects of the actual process of bodily decomposition. The transformation of the living flesh into the essential bone is one of the most dramatic in the cycle of being. Here the flesh remains in the contoured cheeks. However, the specter of death appears in the exposed nasal septa (the vertical slats of the nose) and exaggerated holes depicting the gap between the mandible (jaw) and maxilla (face). The four holes on either side of the nose represent the infra-orbital foramen, holes found in many Native American skulls. These features are visible only when the body has decomposed and not when checks and lips are still apparent.

Commemorating the liminal phase, halfway between first and second burial state, seems to be a main point of these creative works of art. In secondary burial the body is interred twice: after death it is allowed to decompose in an impermanent grave; then when reduced to bones, it is finally interred, often in an urn. Most modern traditional peoples, including those of Costa Rica, believe that souls of the recently deceased are a threat to the living and are wont to try to return, causing harm to the living. These "dying" masks, liminal images that permanently fix a particularly charged stage, perhaps served to exert ritual control over such ambiguity.
Exhibition HistoryMCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, May 11, 1993 - 2001
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, September 13, 2002 - June 2012
'For I am the Black Jaguar': Shamanic Visionary Experience in Ancient American Art, Michael C. Carlos Museum, September 5, 2012 - January 5, 2013
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, February 9, 2013 - Present
Published ReferencesRebecca Stone-Miller, Seeing With New Eyes: Highlights of the Michael C. Carlos Museum Collection of Art of the Ancient Americas (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2002), 82, figure 155.
ProvenanceEx coll. William (1920-2002) and Carol (1921-2019) Thibadeau, Atlanta, Georgia, purchased from Enrique Vargas (Enrique Vargas Alfaro) (1915-2008), San Jose, Costa Rica, September 1984.
Status
On view
Collections
  • Art of the Americas