Masks of dead people are a tradition in many countries. The most important process of the funeral ceremony in ancient Egypt was the mummification of the body. After prayers and consecration, the body was put into a sarcophagus decorated with gold and gems. A special part of the rite was a sculpted mask, put on the face of the dead person. This mask strengthened the spirit of the mummy and guarded the soul from evil spirits on its way to the afterworld. The best known mask is that of Tutankhamun. Made of gold and gems, the mask shows the highly stylized features of the ancient ruler. Such masks were not, however, made from casts of the features. The mummification process itself kept the features of the dead person.
In 1876 the archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered in Mycenae six graves, which he believed were those of kings and ancient Greek heroes—Agamemnon, Cassandra, Evrimdon and others. To his surprise, the skulls were covered with gold masks. It is now thought by some unlikely that the masks actually belonged to Agamemnon and other heroes of the Homeric epics.
The lifelike character of Roman portrait sculptures has been linked to the earlier Roman use of wax to keep the features of dead family members. The wax masks were then remade in stone.
In the late Middle Ages, a shift took place from sculpted masks to true death masks, made of wax or plaster. These masks were not buried with the dead. Instead, they were used in funeral ceremonies and were later kept in libraries, museums and universities. Death masks were taken not only of dead royalty and nobility (Henry VIII, Sforza), but also of important people—poets, philosophers, and dramaturges, such as Dante, Filippo Brunelleschi, Torquato Tasso, Blaise Pascal and Voltaire. Like in ancient Rome, death masks were often then used in making marble sculpture portraits, busts or engravings of the deceased.
Oliver Cromwell’s death mask is kept at Warwick Castle. Another famous death mask is that of Napoleon Bonaparte, taken on the island of Saint Helena and displayed at London’s British Museum.
In Russia, the death mask tradition dates back to the times of Peter the Great, whose death mask was made by Carlo Bartolomeo Rastrelli. Also well known are death masks of Alexander I, Nicholas I and Alexander II.
One of the first real Ukrainian death masks was that of the poet Taras Shevchenko, made by Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Death masks were used by scientists from the late 18th century onwards to record differences in human physiognomy. The life mask was also increasingly common at this time, taken from living persons. Anthropologists used such masks to study physiognomic features in famous persons and notorious criminals. Masks were also used to collect data on racial differences.
Before the invention of photography, the faces of unknown bodies were sometimes kept by making death masks so that relatives of the dead could recognize them if they were looking for a missing person.
One such mask, known as "L'Inconnue de la Seine", recorded the face of a young woman who had drowned in the Seine River at Paris around the late 1880s. A worker at the Paris morgue was so taken by her beauty that he made a plaster cast of her face. She was considered so beautiful that in the following years copies of the mask became a fashionable item in Parisian Bohemian society. The face of Resusci Anne, the world’s first CPR training mannequin, introduced in 1960, was modeled after "L'Inconnue de la Seine".
Al Smith
Alfred Emanuel Smith, Jr. (December 30, 1873 – October 4, 1944), known in private and public life as Al Smith, was an American statesman who was elected the 42nd Governor of New York four times, and was the Democratic US presidential candidate in 1928. He was a leader of the Progressive Movement, and was noted for making a wide range of reforms as governor in the 1920s. He was also linked to the Tammany Hall machine that controlled Manhattan politics; he was a strong opponent of prohibition.
Smith was the first Catholic to run for President, and attracted many thousands of ethnic voters. However he was especially unpopular among Southern Baptists and German Lutherans, who feared the pope would dictate his policies. It was a time of national prosperity, and Smith lost in a landslide to Republican Herbert Hoover. Smith tried for the 1932 nomination, but was defeated by his former ally Franklin D. Roosevelt. Smith entered business in New York City, and became an increasingly vocal opponent of Roosevelt's New Deal.
In 1939 he was appointed a Papal Chamberlain of the Sword and Cape, one of the highest honors the Papacy bestowed on a layman, which today is styled a Gentlemen of His Holiness.
Smith died at the Rockefeller Institute Hospital on October 4, 1944 of a heart attack, at the age of 70, broken-hearted over the death of his wife from cancer five months earlier. He is interred at Calvary Cemetery.
Alfred Smith is the namesake of buildings, schools, a playground, a fireboat, a park, a youth center, a military camp and a philanthropic foundation.
Edwardstone
Edwardstone is a village and civil parish in the Babergh district, in the county of Suffolk, England. In 2011, there were 352 people living in Edwardstone civil parish. The parish contains the villages and hamlets of Mill Green, Priory Green, Round Maple and Sherbourne Street.
The name Edwardstone means Farmstead of a man called Edweard. Edwardstone was listed in the Domesday Book as "Eduardestuna". Edwardstone was once in the Babergh hundred.
Edwardstone Hall was a country house located in the village. It was demolished in 1952, but there are several other buildings still located on its land, including two listed buildings described below: the Church of St Mary the Virgin and Temple Bar.
Edwardstone civil parish had a population (population is the number of people living in a place) of 352 in 2011, 343 in 2001, 299 in 1961, 349 in 1951, 368 in 1931, 341 in 1921, 415 in 1911, 416 in 1901, 420 in 1891, 438 in 1881, 479 in 1851, 495 in 1841, 503 in 1831, 416 in 1821, 374 in 1811 and 362 in 1801. In 1086 there were 32 households in Edwardstone, which was quite large compared to other settlements.
The parish contains the villages and hamlets (a hamlet is a settlement without a church) of Mill Green, Priory Green, Round Maple and Sherbourne Street. Edwardstone has a church called the Church of St Mary the Virgin. Edwardstone is on a tributary (a tributary is a smaller river that flows into another) of the River Stour. Edwardstone civil parish has 31 Listed buildings. Edwardstone has a Cricket Team in Hunts County Division 2. The team plays its home games at Homefields, Boxford. In the "History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Suffolk, and the Towns Near Its Borders" Edwardstone had 1872 acres of land which was mostly arable (land that can be used for growing crops), but it also included 105 acres of woodland.
The forest surrounding the village is called Edwardstone Woods. It is mainly broadleaved, mixed and yew woodland. It has been classified as scientifically important by the British government.
There are 31 listed buildings in Edwardstone.
GENUKI
Groton, Suffolk
Groton is a village and civil parish in the Babergh district, in the county of Suffolk, England. Groton has a church called St Bartholomew Church. The parish contains the hamlets of Broad Street, Castling's Heath, Gosling Green, Horner's Green and Parliament Heath. In 2001, there were 222 people living in Groton.
The name Groton might mean sandy or pebbly stream. Groton was listed in the Domesday Book as "Grotena".
Booker T. Jones
Booker T. Jones (born November 12, 1944) is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and arranger. He is famous as the leader of the band Booker T. & the M.G.'s. He has also worked in recording studios with some of the highest regarded musicians of the 20th and 21st centuries, and in 2007 was given a Grammy Award for a lifetime of good work.