Mask of the Sumerian period (2600 B.C.), now at the Louvre Museum, Paris. Though the use of these masks remains unknown, it is probable that they were worn during the performance of ritual dramas, where scenes inspired to the sacred stories of the gods were enacted. For example, there are traces of a Battle Drama, related to the gods of the thunderstorms of spring, Ninurta and Marduk, which was probably celebrated for activating these powers in order to bring the rains to fecundate the fields (Jacobsen 2005).

[Image: http://www.scholarsresource.com/browse/period/6?page=2]