What are the gold funerary masks used by our ancestors for?

Filipinos used to cover the dead’s face with gold masks, but what really is this for?

On Kuya Kim’s “24 Oras” report Tuesday, Ayala Museum’s associate curator Tenten Mina said this is to determine one’s status in life. It’s used during the internment of the dead.

“This was primarily to imply the status of the person. In precolonial Philippine society, it is indicated that gold was an indicator of wealth of the Filipinos,” she said.

Another is that the gold funerary masks protect the dead bodies “from being possessed by evil spirits.”

Currently, eight of nine funerary masks are displayed in Ayala Museum’s Gold of Ancestors exhibit. The  largest in the collection, is “on loan” to the Louvre Museum in Abu Dhabi.

Book your visit to the Ayala Museum in Makati through its website. https://www.ayalamuseum.org/visit —Franchesca Viernes/LDF, GMA News