MARTOR 31/2026

Between Face and Faceless: Meanings of Masks in Greek Antiquity and Romanian Folklore
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DOI: www.doi.org/10.57225/martor.2026.31.07

AUTHOR:
Sorana-Cristina Man
National Museum of the Romanian Peasant, Romania

PAGES: 113-125.

KEYWORDS: Mask; face; prosopon; persona; Greek mythology.

ABSTRACT: In Romanian folklore there are masks for the spirits of the dead (such as the Moșii and Uncheșii of Nereju), whereas in Greek folklore, the face and the mask are both conflicting with death. The deceased lacks a prosopon in either sense of the term (“face” or “mask”), both in life and after death. While still on earth, his face is at once covered: to see another clearly in the sunlight presupposes mutual visibility, and death terminates this reciprocal visual relationship. In Hades, too, he has no prosopon: Ulysses calls the shades he encounters there karena, “heads,” not prosopa. A word that expresses sight, a link between “to see” and “to say,” prosopon also implies being seen. For the Greeks, the mask is prosopon, it is that which stands before the eyes and has eyes, it is the face. The Romanian mask, on the other hand, seems rather to have inherited the Latin persona, which has emerged from the dark world of Persephone. The Greek mask, endowed with sight and meant to be seen, like the face with which it is confused, exists only in the light of day, only in its relation to the gaze directed upon it, to the other prosopon. Are the two types of masks, the Romanian and the Greek, fundamentally different, or is there something that links them? If such a relationship exists, is it best understood as historical, as anthropological, or as grounded in a shared sensibility that links the two mentalities?

HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE: Man, Sorana-Cristina. 2026. “Between Face and Faceless: Meanings of Masks in Greek Antiquity and Romanian Folklore.” Martor 31, 113-125. [DOI 10.57225/martor.2026.31.07]

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