The First Face

The First Face

This ivory carving is between 3,900 and 3,600 years old.

Found on Devon Island in the Canadian High Arctic, it is one of the oldest depictions of a human face in North America. The carving may represent the face of an elderly woman. The lines carved on her forehead, chin and cheeks are likely facial tattoos. Some Inuit women wore similar tattoos until the mid-1900s.