The world's oldest masks, crafted from stone some 9,000 years ago in Jerusalem and now on display at the Israel Museum, have been compared to several notable figures in pop culture, including Hannibal Lector from "The Silence of the Lambs." To me, they've got a more simple, playful quality like that of "A Nightmare Before Christmas" (the ones above could pass for Jack the Pumpkin King while this shot from NBC has remnants of the two-faced mayor).
Probably, the curators of the exhibit would rather observers and visitors read the descriptions and understand the history than make comparisons to the first image that comes to mind. Decades of research went into the display, which represents the first time the collection has been together in the place of its origins. The exhibit began on March 11 and will run for the next seven months, NBC reported.
"It's quite exciting," James Snyder, director of the Israel Museum, told NBC. "When you go back to objects that are this old, that are so much before the theology that becomes Judaism, Christianity and then Islam, to feel that there is a kind of a connection, that this is all part of a continuous story, is something that is pretty thrilling."
Part of the reason why it took so long for researchers to organize the masks into an exhibit is because many slipped through science's hands and into those of private collectors, according to NBC. One large body -- such as the Israel Museum -- needed to acquire enough masks to confirm certain research points, including whether they were worn over people's faces or tied to trees (answer: faces).
The masks were made in the Neolithic Age, before writing was invented. They weren't, however, the first masks to be crafted and worn -- if cave drawings with masks from 25,000 years ago are enough evidence. No other physical evidences exists of their presence; likely, they were made of biodegradable materials.
"I don't think there's anything that early from other parts of the world that you can say is a mask," said Iain Morley, a professor of paleoanthropology at Oxford University, of existing masks.
"These extremely rare 9,000-year-old stone masks all originated in the Land of Israel and are considered among the most ancient human portraits," reads the Museum's description on their web page. "The exhibition concludes a decade of investigative work and marks the first time that this enigmatic group will be displayed together in their birthplace."
