Several decades ago, a farmhand stumbled across an unusual discovery in the Judean Desert of southern Israel while plowing his field near the village of el-Hadeb. It appeared to be a stone face resembling no particular individual and with no clear place of origin.

It is unknown what happened to the mask until, in 1970, Moshe Dayan, Israel's Minister of Defense, purchased it.

Dayan's writings recall, "I was fortunate to acquire a ritual article from this region, a magnificent mask. The marvel, apart from its age, lies in its facial expression. It has circles for eyes, a small nose, and prominent grinning teeth. It is a human face, but one that strikes terror in its beholder. If there is any power in the world able to banish evil spirits, it must assuredly dwell in this mask."

Art historians were equally enamored, drawn in by the carvings' quality and the mask's expression. Whereas Dayan may have described the mask as "grinning," others have stated that the ten-toothed mouth depicts a scream.

The grotesque and horrific expression of the mask led some to speculate that it may be a death mask made of a prominent Neolithic Israelite or that it could have relevance to ancient burial rituals that historians do not yet understand.

Clearly taken with the artifact, Dayan, upon his death in 1981, donated it to the Israel Museum.

Archeologists and anthropologists later decided to retrace Dayan's footsteps to the farm from which the mask was recovered. Numerous artifacts from the pre-pottery era were found at the site, which turned out to be a sizeable Neolithic village.

With modern methods, the archeological team soon determined these finds, including the Dayan Mask, to be some 9,000 years old. This meant that the Dayan Mask was the oldest surviving mask ever discovered. However, it was not until the mask was compared to other archeological discoveries made in the region that the bigger picture finally began to take shape.