Evans further explained that many pagans, who had no respect for Christians, often used Christian writings to mask their dead loved ones, because they deemed the Christian writings as 'trash. Generally their purpose was to represent the features of the deceased, both to honour them and to establish a relationship. Funerary masks were frequently used to cover the face of the deceased. Live Science is reporting that Craig Evans, a professor of New Testament studies at Acadia Divinity College in Nova Scotia, and an associated team of three dozen researchers and scholars have unmasked what is thought to be a written portion of the Gospel of Mark, that possibly dates back as early as 80 A.D.Īlthough most people think of Egyptian mummy masks being made of gold, Evans explained in a seminar that most ancient Egyptians, that were not pharaohs nor part of ancient Egypt's elite social class, were mummified with masks made out of used sheets of papyrus because that was the most cost efficient way for the families to preserve the bodies of their loved ones.īecause papyrus itself was so expensive, the families often used sheets of papyrus that had already been used to write on. Mask - Funerary, Commemorative, Rituals: In cultures in which burial customs are important, anthropomorphic masks have often been used in ceremonies associated with the dead and departing spirits. By Rod Anderson, CP Cartoonist Monday, January 26, 2015Ī team of scientists and scholars claim to have discovered the world's earliest-known version of the Gospel, dating back to the first century A.D., which was found on a sheet of papyrus used to make an ancient mummy's mask in Egypt.
