This stone mask from the pre-ceramic neolithic period dates to 7000 BC and is probably the oldest mask in the world (Musée de la Bible et de la Terre Sainte)

Tribal mask represent the spirits of ancestors or to control the good and evil forces in the community. They enhanced by both the music and atmosphere of the occasion. Some combine human and animal features to unite man with his natural environment. This bond with nature is of great importance to the African and through the ages masks have always been used to express this relationship.

Greek mask Ordinary man could go beyond his real identity and become a mythological hero or a foolish old man or a beautiful young woman, a god or a slave. In this disguise he could say and do things that could not be said and done in everyday life, and could present to the audience events, actions and ideas that were horrifying or ridiculous, inspiring or fantastic.

Masquerade mask The masquerade has always been about celebration and parties.

Masks: The Face Transplants of World War I When maimed soldiers returned from the Western Front, sculptors worked to allow them to "be able to appear in public unnoticed" by re-creating their faces. OLGA KHAZAN, AUG 4, 2014 The Atlantic

The prevailing sentiment a century ago was that losing part of one's face meant, in a way, a change of identity. In the U.K., "very severe facial disfigurement" was one of the few injuries for which a soldier received the full pension—the thinking being that it compromised one's "sense of self and social existence," as the historian Suzannah Biernoff explains. Newspapers at the timesaid the veterans "are almost condemned to isolation unless surgery can repair the damage."

"The psychological effect on a man who must go through life, an object of horror to himself as well as to others, is beyond description," recalled Fred Albee, an American surgeon working in France. "It is a fairly common experience for the maladjusted person to feel like a stranger to his world."

In Literature A mask can symbolize many different ideas: Trickery and lies A person hiding their true self A character trying to be something they are not. Someone ashamed of themselves. When a story includes, or mentions, a mask ask WHY?

Journal Entry How would your mask be used? For entertainment or protection? What will your mask be showing the world? What will it be hiding?