3,000-yr-old copper mask found in Argentina

Washington: Scientists University of Buenos with a collection of have discovered a Aires in human bones — 3,000-year-old rectangular Argentina also was found in a copper mask in Argentina found a source of tomb near a village — one of the oldest copper ore within in northwestern human-made metal object 70 kilometres of Argentina. from South America. the location There were

The mask, that dates where the mask about 14 bodies in back to about 1000 BC, was was uncovered, the burial area, found at a site where suggesting that it with the bones all adults and children were was produced mixed together buried. locally. and the mask

Holes mark the position It is probable that metalworking placed on top of one corner of the mask’s eyes, nose emerged in of the pile. and mouth, with additional Argentina at the same Another burial area small, circular openings time that it was developing nearby held a single occupant. near the edges that could in Peru, the researchers The bones of a child have been threaded to wrote in the study published about 8 to 12 years old, also secure it to a face or an in the journal dating to about 3,000 years object. Antiquity. ago, were buried with a

Scientists from The metal mask - along stone bead and a copper pendant, Live Science reported.

The mask measures about 18 centimetres long and nearly 15 cm wide. To create the mask, someone would have hammered the metal flat while it was cold and then reheated it, researchers said.

The age of these metal objects — particularly the mask, crafted to deliberately resemble a human face — strongly suggests that people in the Argentinian regions of the Andes were shaping copper into artifacts earlier than previously thought, they said.