How do mummy masks act? This question is the starting point of the present study, which aims at a change of perspective. Contrary to the prevailing view, mummy masks are regarded here, not as lifeless objects, but as independent entities that could acquire subject status depending on the context in which they were used. In antiquity a mummy mask was an actor of equal status. Investigating how mummy masks were able to become empowered actors and which contexts this occurred in is the primary subject of this book.
To answer this question, three different types of source are evaluated: the outward appearance of the mummy mask (mask body, decorative program, inscriptions), its archaeological context (workshop group, find assemblage in the grave) as well as the ancient texts (documentary papyri, Book of the Dead, embalming ritual, opening of the mouth ritual, book of transformations). A mummy mask's agency, which can be described as material, communicative and magical, is effective in all these sources, albeit in profoundly different ways. Aspects of portraiture and corporeality are expressed in the outward appearance of the mummy mask, while the communicative agency that it exerts was closely related to its visibility and accessibility in the grave context. The precondition for the magical agency in contrast was its ritual activation during the funeral ceremony and funerary cult.
Consideration of all these aspects makes it possible to describe the status of a mummy mask as patient and agent in different contexts and to identify what role it was accorded as an active medium of cultural exchange in the Hellenistic-Roman koine of the Mediterranean region.