Ceremonial mask
Peru, north coast, La Leche Valley, Batán Grande area, Sicán culture
A.D. 900–1100
Gold, copper, and paint
11 3/4 x 17 3/8 in. (29.84 x 44.13 cm)
The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., 1969.1.McD

The Sicán culture flourished in the Batán Grande area of northern Peru between A.D. 700 and 1300. Extraordinary metallurgical production distinguished the middle Sicán period (A.D. 900–1100), evidenced not only by the numerous Middle Sicán–style objects in museum and private collections but by the contents of an undisturbed tomb discovered by archaeologist Izumi Shimada in 1991. The Huaca Loro tomb, the first Sicán burial to be scientifically excavated, contained about 1.2 tons of grave goods. Analysis of its rich array of metalwork is providing valuable contextual information for other objects in the Sicán style.

Like a gold mask from Huaca Loro, Dallas’s Sicán mask depicts the face of the most important human image in Sicán art, a mythic or religious figure called the Sicán Lord. The Museum’s mask is characteristically horizontal, with comma-shaped eyes, a prominent nose, and a rectangular flange at each side, which typically supported circular ear ornaments that were made separately and attached. The eyes of the mask are overlaid with copper, which has oxidized to a deep green, and traces of red on the forehead and cheeks show that it, like other masks, was painted with cinnabar. The Huaca Loro mask was accompanied by a bat-faced horizontal element and an arching parabolic headdress of silver and gold, indicating that a Sicán mask could form the principal component of more elaborate ceremonial regalia.