Author Description

"The Malinaltepec Mask", publication coordinated by Sofia Martínez del Campo, specialist in funerary masks, integrates 7 recent studies by 20 researchers on the noted turquoise Pre-Hispanic piece. The book deals with substantial and assorted analyses that the piece made out of 762 tesserae with an approximate age of 1,800 years underwent. Among the studies are morphometric characterization, mineralogy, petrography, lapidary characteristics, technological analysis and adhesives used to paste decorations. "Since its finding in 1921, the mask caused controversy among archaeologists: specialist Porfírio Aguirre thought he had just found one of the great treasures of Mesoamerica, while authorities thought it had been recently created. "In early 2008 archaeologist Felipe Solís, then director of the National Museum of Anthropology (MNA), promoted the investigation of the Teotihuacan mask with the aim of clearing up any doubts". The work is product of an interdisciplinary investigation, gathering around the object more than 20 specialists in chemistry, mineralogy, petrography, biology, archaeology and Anthropology. "This is a mask of great quality, with different material inlay, a Teotihuacan object to which decoration was added up later, integrating the unity through time", commented Eduardo Matos Moctezuma. A piece that unites two periods of time. Malinaltepec Mask is a Teotihuacan-style funerary object used in 2 different moments: it was created during the Classic period (200-900 AD) and used again in a funeral during the Post Classic period (900-1521 AD, "Mesoamerican people treasured pieces of past cultures, recovering Olmeca and Teotihuacan masks from funerary contexts and re appropriating them later to give them different uses", detailed the restorer. "Its function during the Classic period is unknown, it might have been part of a sculpture or attached to an architectural structure; during the Post Classic, it was used to bury it with an important character. "It was