Editing Mask (section)

===Middle East===
[[File:Ancient iranian mask.jpg|thumb|right|Golden masks excavated from the [[Kalmakareh Cave]] in [[Lorestan]], Iran, first half of first Millennium BC, [[National Museum of Iran]]]]
Theatre in the Middle East, as elsewhere, was initially of a ritual nature, dramatising human relationships with nature, the deities, and other human beings. It grew out of sacred rites of myths and legends performed by priests and lay actors at fixed times and often in fixed locations. Folk theatre – mime, mask, puppetry, farce, juggling – had a ritual context in that it was performed at religious or rites of passage such as days of naming, circumcisions, and marriages. Over time, some of these contextual ritual enactments became divorced from their religious meaning and they were performed throughout the year. Some 2500 years ago, kings and commoners alike were entertained by dance and mime accompanied by music where the dancers often wore masks, a vestige of an earlier era when such dances were enacted as religious rites. According to [[George Goyan]], this practice evoked that of Roman funeral rites where masked actor-dancers represented the deceased with motions and gestures mimicking those of the deceased while singing the praise of their lives (see '' Masks in Performance'' above).<ref>{{cite book | title = The History of Theater in Iran | first = Willem | last = Floor | publisher = MAGE | year = 2005 | isbn = 0-934211-29-9}}</ref>