Chinese Death Mask in the University of Pennsylvania Museum, November 2009

Death Mask
Liao Dynasty (947-1125)
Silver

The delicate features of this thin silver death mask were beaten into shape from a heavy sheet of metal. Masks like this were placed over the faces of men and women of the Khitan (Qidan) tribes that formed the Liao empire. The masks were attached to gold, silver, or copper wire shrouds that covered the bodies of Khitan buried in Inner Mongolia and Liaoning province between the mid-10th and first quarter of the 12th century.

Text from the U. Penn. Museum label.