Q and A

Question: " I wonder if any of your sources said anything about the hair on the masks being real? or any part of the "deceased" person's actual body being a part of it."


Answer: I have not read anything about using real hair on the funerary masks or any other part of the deceased being used. In the book I am reading "Reading Death in Ancient Rome" there is a section that described a traditional Roman burial ritual called ossilegium. "The burial ritual of ossilegium involves two stages: the amputation of a body part, normally a finger, prior to cremation, which was interred with the ashes (os resectum) and the gathering of bone fragments and ashed following cremation (os exceptum)."

I decided to post the question and answer as a blog entry because it is a good question and I felt that some of you other readers might be interested in the answer! Actually, I would really enjoy it if you guys did post questions so that I could continue to post entries like this!