Photos: Lost Roman masks recreated

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Roman Recreation

(Image credit: Drew Fulton)

A Strange Custom

(Image credit: Drew Fulton)

Actors wore these kinds of masks to stand in for dead family members during funeral processions to help piece together entire genealogical lines.

Men Only

(Image credit: Drew Fulton)

Though researchers who worked on this project were women, the right to an ancestor mask was reserved for men only.

Beeswax

(Image credit: Drew Fulton)

These masks, called imagines maiorum, were made from beeswax, which could be an exotic or expensive material if it came from special, faraway sources.

Keeping Up Appearances

(Image credit: Drew Fulton)

Since beeswax is unstable and quite delicate, the ancestor masks likely would have required continual maintenance. [Read the full story about the masks]

Megan Gannon
Megan Gannon
Live Science Contributor
Megan has been writing for Live Science and Space.com since 2012. Her interests range from archaeology to space exploration, and she has a bachelor's degree in English and art history from New York University. Megan spent two years as a reporter on the national desk at NewsCore. She has watched dinosaur auctions, witnessed rocket launches, licked ancient pottery sherds in Cyprus and flown in zero gravity. Follow her on Twitter and Google+.