{"id":4347,"date":"2016-08-02T17:29:23","date_gmt":"2016-08-02T17:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/?p=4347"},"modified":"2016-08-03T15:56:31","modified_gmt":"2016-08-03T15:56:31","slug":"old-bolivian-funeral-mask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/old-bolivian-funeral-mask\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Bolivian funeral mask"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"aaaMystrySolvd-1001\"<\/a>Q:<\/strong>\u00a0 I acquired this silver mask in Bolivia about 30 years ago at a price of ca $100. At the time I was told that it is a funeral mask worn by the living who attended a funeral. Size of the mask is 5,5 by 4,5 inches. Any information that you are able to provide will be greatly appreciated.\u00a0 Gideon, 1001<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong>\u00a0 At that small size and without eye holes, this is not something to wear. It would appeal to tourists and some collectors. There is a similar, but larger, mask on page 158 of my new book, Masks of the World<\/em>. It says “this Pre-Columbian mask is 8″ high and made of beaten silver. It was bought in Bolivia in the 1950’s. There is a similar mask in the Museo del Oro of La Paz.” Two years ago when I was writing the book, I could not confirm this. Today I tried again… and failed again. I hope one of our readers will shed some light on these intriguing metal masks.\"aaaMystrySolvd-1001-b\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Later I did a search on the internet and discovered that silver Aymara masks, large and small, are a popular tourist item in La Paz. The Aymara are a large indigenous culture populating the Altaplano region in western Bolivia. These are often called Inca funeral masks.<\/p>\n

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Q:\u00a0 I acquired this silver mask in Bolivia about 30 years ago at a price of ca $100. At the time I was told that it is a funeral mask worn by the living who attended a funeral. Size of the mask is 5,5 by 4,5 inches. Any information that you are able to provide will be greatly appreciated.\u00a0 Gideon, 1001 A:\u00a0 At that small size and without eye holes, this is not something to wear. It would appeal to tourists and some collectors. There is a similar, but larger, mask on page 158 of my new book, Masks of the World. It says “this Pre-Columbian mask is 8″ high and made of beaten silver. It was bought in Bolivia in the 1950’s. There is a similar mask in the Museo del Oro of La Paz.” Two years ago when I was writing the book, I could not confirm this. Today I tried again… and failed again. I hope one of our readers will shed some light on these intriguing metal masks. Later I did a search on the internet and discovered that silver Aymara masks, large and small, are a popular tourist item in La Paz. The Aymara are a large indigenous culture populating the Altaplano region in western Bolivia. These are often called Inca funeral masks. Save<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-south-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4347"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4353,"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4347\/revisions\/4353"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}