These Are the World’s Oldest Masks Ever Discovered, And Are Estimated to Be 9000 Years Old

Elie Posner/Israel Museum

In 1983, a small team of archaeologists led by Harvard prehistorian Ofer Bar-Yosef, excavated a recently looted cave in the southern Judean Desert. Known as Nahal Hemar, the site appears to have been used to store thousands of objects from an ancestor cult. The scientists uncovered rope baskets, wooden beads, shells, flint knives, figurines carved from bone, human skulls decorated with molded asphalt, and embroidered textiles that may once have been ritual costumes. Continue reading »