In this splendid face, the naturalistic efforts stand out both in the delicate carving of the light brown stone block, and in the finish with shell inlays.  The craftsman produced an oval and concave plaque, suitable for overlaying the anatomy of a face.   On the upper edge it has three perforations that allow one to strings through and tie it to the wearer's head. . The alternation of fine bumps and depressions form the forehead, eye sockets, nose, cheekbones, lips, and chin; the long and rectangular ears can be seen laterally, differentiated from the face by means of grooves.  The embossing highlights the large brow ridges attached to the thin volume of the nose, which seen in profile is slightly arched; the nostrils represented and also the nasal perforations. 

         In contrast to the modeling on the obverse, the back surface is smooth with only three horizontal rectangular perforations in the area of the eyes and mouth; the mentioned nostrils do not through the plaque. The ears and the sides of the face are seen as oblique protrusions.  Returning to the frontal view, the eyes and eyeteeth stand out as shell inlays, surely attached with some resin such as copal.  With these elements the image of a vital and expressive face is completed. 

         The sclera and iris of the eyes are made up with two plaques cut in precise almond-shaped contours and in the center with circular perforations; faint diagonal striations lend liveliness to the gaze.  Meanwhile on the sides of the half-open mouth are notable two white forms with the silhouette of a drop.  It is likely that this piece fulfilled a burial function, in the manner of a mask that preserved through the image the corporeal vitality and the social identity of a corpse, skeleton or the remains in a burial bundle, and in this sense, the emphasis placed on the sense organs is very striking, since the face watches, breathes and speaks, and its corporeality is subtly three-dimensional. 

         In the lapidary art of the Mezcala culture three stylistic variants are identified; the so-called Chontal style is the one that this mask exemplifies.  It is characterized by its greater naturalism, within the canons of abstract aesthetics typical of the represented images sculpted in fine and compact grained stones of that important development detected in the center, north and Tierra Caliente of Guerrero and in adjacent areas of the State of Mexico, Morelos and Michoacan, a vast territory crossed from east to west by the depression of the Mezcala-Balsas River.  In the search for such naturalism, the workshops that produced the Chontal variety used materials such as shell, pyrite and obsidian in their works to capture certain details. 

         The malacological material of this mask was among the resources accessible to the Mezcala society, on the one hand because certain species of gastropod and bivalve molluscs are typical of the fauna of the mighty Mezcala-Balsas freshwater course, and also because it was a way to obtain marine species, since its long channel empties into the Pacific Ocean, where the port of Zacatula is located. 

         However, the availability of raw materials, stones of fine and compact consistency and shells were highly valued due to their symbolic attributes linked to the aquatic, subterranean and primordial world of the cosmos.  Likewise, the objects made with them were considered goods of high social prestige due to the fact that their elaboration was specialized. In both cases, experienced hands were required, capable of making precise cuts and grinds, without the possibility of correcting any errors. 

         Thus, this mask bears the harmonic face of a high-status human being, whose permanent vitality and expressiveness is imbued with sacredness.

Veronica Hernandez Diaz