9,000 Year-Old Stone Judaean Masks

http://news.yahoo.com/ancient-masks-display-jerusalem-160209806.html?soc_src=mediacontentstory

Interesting story about eleven stone masks, dating from 7000 BCE, found in the Judaean desert. These eleven human faces, graven in stone, varying in their appearance, seem to have holes at the base so that sticks can be inserted. What the article did not say was how much these masks weigh. They look fairly heavy, so it is unlikely, in my opinion, that they would be hand-held during rituals, but might have been put on sticks and propped up as part of the scenery or background, although the scientist who found them did not seem to think so. They do not have the megaphone mouths of later Roman or Greece mask design and appear to have been unpainted. (Neolithic people had access to natural pigments and were prolific colorists.)

Given that these masks date from 7,000 BCE, these masks were made at roughly the same time that small figurines were made of the white clay in the area later known as the District of Galilee. They pre-date the prohibition of the making of "graven images."