Roman Ancestor Masks Recreated

Uncannily Lifelike Roman Masks Recreated in Wax

Some 2,000 years ago, elite Roman families stuffed their closets with wax masks made in the likeness of their male ancestors so that during funeral processions actors could fill in for the missing links of the genealogical line. Scholars know about the strange practice from ancient sources, such as the Greek historian Polybius, though none of the masks themselves survive. Recently, however, a team of researchers at Cornell University made life-cast molds of their own faces to recreate these imagines maiorum, and they found that the wax masks were indeed uncannily lifelike. Read more.