The discovery of a "2000-year-old green serpentine stone mask found at the base of the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico" has united the internet against anyone wearing it lest we create an IRL version of The Mask or Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

2000-year-old green serpentine stone mask found at the base of the pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacan, Mexico. pic.twitter.com/KUJ7f7Oq9I

— Fascinating (@fasc1nate) October 4, 2022

The discovery of the mask is actually much older than the viral tweet from "@fasc1nate" would have people believe. The account simply posts cool findings and factoids from the worlds of science, art and history. The mask they posted about on Tuesday was actually discovered in 2011, according to My Modern Met, and archaeologists believe the mask was an offering to inaugurate the construction of the Pyramid.

"It's believed that these offerings were left as part of a ritual to inaugurate the construction of the pyramid — hence its location at the lower level," My Modern Met wrote. "The mask itself is extremely lifelike, which gave rise to the theory that it's actually a portrait."

This context was, of course, lost on the legions of Twitter users who assumed the discovery was more recent, and as Twitter users are ever ready to claim science has gone too far, they started firing off jokes and memes about how ancient masks have been the MacGuffins of many a plot in TV and movies.

leave that mask where it is has no one watched a movie before? https://t.co/QOjCLnO7DS

— Vincent Martella (@VinMan17) October 6, 2022

oh hell no https://t.co/uBQsJLLCzm pic.twitter.com/sfLB8ljrY6

— ❈ ⁷アサイ²⁹ ❈ 🃏 (@blackcupid29) October 6, 2022

Archaeologists: Please don't put on the mask
Me: …… https://t.co/e1txnSidmV pic.twitter.com/33n2YbArZh

— Classical Studies Memes for Hellenistic Teens (@CSMFHT) October 6, 2022

So far as we know, the mask is not imbued with mystical powers, so it likely will not be, say, the key for a respectable law student who was poisoning his foster father to become the ultimate villain.

The best we can hope for, according to archaeologists, is a clearer picture of who built the Pyramid of the Sun, erected years before the Aztecs visited the Teotihuacan.