Carved from wood more than five centuries ago, a small skull faced mask held today at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore once gave physical form to one of the most feared and revered deities in the entire Aztec pantheon, Mictlantecuhtli, lord of the underworld. Measuring just 6.75 by 5.5 inches, the mask depicts the god with sunken, black pupiled eyes and a triangular, bone like nose, giving it an unmistakably skeletal appearance. Mictlantecuhtli ruled over Mictlan, the underworld through which the Aztecs believed every soul had to travel, and this rare surviving mask offers a direct physical link to the rituals built around one of Aztec religion's most formidable gods.
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