Unique Mayan mask found in Mexico - Livescience.com

The mask has been reburied for its own protection.

A giant Mayan mask as tall as a person has been revealed at an archaeological site in the Mexican state of Yucatán. .

The mask, which depicts the face of an unknown deity or elite person, was sculpted from the building material stucco and dates back to a period in Maya history known as the Late Preclassic (about 300 B.C. — A.D. 250), according to the news outlet Novedades Yucatán.

The discovery was made in 2017 at the archaeological site of Ucanha, near the modern-day city of Motul, and since then researchers with Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have worked painstakingly to restore it.

The mask is a stucco relief, a type of brightly-colored painted sculpture carved from a background of stucco.

The mask was temporarily reburied after its discovery so that the structure was protected until it could be properly studied and preserved.

The archaeologists completed the work in 2019, before reburying the mask for a final time