Face to Face with a Death Mask
I have always been fascinated with history, I loved history class as a student and when I work on a new project, I do tons of research on my new subject. I scour articles, books seeking new evidence on my new subject. I have always been drawn to what perhaps can be labeled as ‘Dark Tourism,’ in modern terms. I love exploring historic cemeteries, learning about our those in our community who are no longer with us who have helped shape it. I have always found it fascinating. This curiosity has always been with me and starting a job at Woodlawn Funeral Home & Memorial Gardens seemed like a pretty good fit for someone like me.
We have always buried our dead, we have always had rituals that have honored our dead. They vary culture to culture, these were things that I heavily researched when I started my journey at Woodlawn. One of the things in the history and culture of death rites and rituals that I have always been familiar with is the Death Mask.
A Death Mask, while not commonly practiced in modern times, is the honoring someone after their passing by creating a mask from various materials, depending on when it was made, it could have been made of mud, clay, marble or a variety of other materials. In fact, I have made a Life Cast of myself, with the help of class mates in one my design courses in college, it’s the same process of plaster, water and bandages used on live models too.
Death Masks have been made for centuries, the first Death Masks can be traced back to Ancient Africa and Egypt, perhaps one of the most famous ones from that time period being the Funerary Mask of King Tutankhamun. In Greco/Roman times, Death Masks were made for display and worship in the household. The use of Death Masks expanded beyond the purpose or worship and display proved to have a practical purpose. A Death Mask was helpful to painters and artists so they could have something they could refer to. Law enforcement also made masks of unknown dead in hopes of identifying them.
A more famous Death Mask, “L’Inconnue de la Seine” known in English as ‘The Unknown Woman,’ has a sad history in the city of Paris, France. When her body was recovered from the Seine River in Paris in the 1870s or 1880s, her death date is unsure, a morgue attendant was so struck by her beauty he requested a Death Mask be made for her.
Infamous gangster, John Dillenger, also had a Death Mask produced, but without his permission. It is said after his passing, nearly 15,000 Chicagoans waited outside the morgue to catch a glimpse of the man that terrorized their town. In order to appease their need, two different groups of medical students made Death Masks of Mr. Dillenger.
While the Death Mask is not used as often any more it has played an important part in our collective history.
I never thought that I would encounter a Death Mask on any intimate sort of level. To my surprise, the Funeral Home served a family recently that wanted to make a Death Mask of their loved one.
Since this practice is not a common one, and not weaved into the curriculum of Mortuary Science our Funeral Directors were a little confused at first. The husband of the deceased was very well versed in the process of molding and casting and wanted to make a Death Mask of his Wife.
He was welcomed back into the sacred space of the prep room where he made the mask of his beloved, and our Funeral Directors assisted him, a bit of a role reversal. He created a negative mold that would be used later to cast with other materials. His final product was a full mask cast in beautiful marble of his deceased wife. Our motto is, “a special tribute for a special person,” each service is unique and catered to what families need most. This was without a doubt one of those special tributes.
