A Japanese museum has put on display an ancient Korean mask found recently in Japan 400 years after it disappeared.

Korea University Professor Jeon Kyung-wook said Friday the wooden mask is believed to be one of three missing Korean "Hahoe" masks designated by the Korean government as national treasures. The mask, which measures 24 centimeters high and 16 centimeters wide, is on display at the Yatsushiro Municipal Museum in Japan's Kumamoto Prefecture,

Jeon said he examined it in August at the museum's request and found it showed the same distinctive features of Hahoe masks. He added there's a high possibility that the museum specimen is one of the Hahoe masks, called Byeolchae, made to resemble a tax collector of the Joseon Dynasty.

The Yatsushiro Museum said Japanese General Konishi Yukinaga, who joined Toyotomi Hideyoshi in his invasion of the Korean Peninsula from 1592 to 1598, took the mask as a war trophy.