AN AEGEAN OR BALKAN BRONZE HELMET

LATE BRONZE AGE, CIRCA 14TH-13TH CENTURY B.C.

Details

AN AEGEAN OR BALKAN BRONZE HELMET
late bronze age, circa 14th-13th century b.c.
The bell-shaped helmet and knob finial formed from a single sheet of hammered bronze, the knob finial with a central perforation, reinforced on the interior with a small bronze sheet joined by three rivets, the bottom edge with perforations along the perimeter, ornamented with three incised registers below the finial and two incised registers above the bottom edge, each register composed of hatched curving lines running in opposite directions, the registers separated by hatched lines, the bottom register interrupted by four intertwined spirals
7.1/8 in. (18.1 cm.) high

Lot Essay

Homeric tradition, as well as contemporaneous depictions of armed warriors, informs that Mycenaean helmets were conical in form with their surfaces covered with curving boar's tusks arranged in rows running in opposite directions. The form of this helmet is identical, and the pattern of the incised wavy lines within distinct registers clearly imitates the arrangement of the tusks on Mycenaean helmets. The spiral motif along the lower register is also common within the Mycenaean artistic repetoire.

Several actual boar's tusks helmets are known, including a restored example from a chamber tomb in Spata, Attica, no. 239 in Demakopoulou, et al., The Mycenaean World, Five Centuries of Early Greek Culture, 1600-1100 B.C. Depictions of warriors or deities wearing boar's tusks helmets are found on gems, pottery, ivory, and frescos. For an ivory inlay with the head of a warrior see no. 238 in the same publication. For a fresco fragment from the "cult center" at Mycenae see no. 149 in the same publication. Only very few bronze helmets from this period are known. For an example in a much poorer state of repair from an Achaean warrior's tomb near Knossos see no. 113 in Marinatos, Crete and Mycenae.