Mask

Full or partial face covering Papierkrattler masks at the Narrensprung 2005 Carnival parade, Ravensburg, Germany A mask is an object normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance, or entertainment, and often employed for rituals and rites. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practical purposes, as well as in the performing arts and for entertainment. They are usually worn on the face, though they may also be positioned elsewhere on the wearer's body for effect. In art history, especially sculpture, "mask" is the term for a face without a body that is not modelled in the round (which would make it a "head"), but, for example, appears in low relief. Etymology The so-called 'Mask of Agamemnon', a 16th-century BC mask discovered by Heinrich Schliemann in 1876 at Mycenae, Greece. Displayed at the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. The word "mask" appeared in English in the 1530s, from Middle French masque "covering to hide or guard the face", derived in turn from Italian maschera, from Medieval Latin masca "mask, specter, nightmare". This word is of uncertain origin, perhaps from Arabic maskharah مَسْخَرَۃٌ "buffoon",