Jordanian funerary artefacts

A

funeral mask in stone from Nahal Hemar, 7th milennium BC, and a collection of overmodeled skulls with shell eyes and the mandibles removed; sometimes the chin is sculpted, in a compressed way, over the lower teeth. (photo by Jeff Rozwadowski, whose photostream from the Archaeological Museum at Amman, Jordan, is here)

This Siamese twin is from Ain Ghazai, c. 6500bc, and the faces on it somehow resemble the current director of the Jordanian Automobile Museum, below. These physiognomies echo down the years. When I was learning portraiture at Central St Martins, our tutor Monty identified that our Italian fellow student's face - pale, severe, dark melancholy eyes - had its ancestor on a 1st cent. AD encaustic coffin mask from Fayoum.