ARCHAIC PERIOD, CIRCA 6TH CENTURY B.C.

This mask, hammered from thin gold sheet and then pressed over a matrix, was likely once attached to an Illyrian helmet via the perforations along its upper edge. The practice of combining gold masks and helmets is well documented from a number of sites across the Greek world and likely had a funerary or religious significance. For a similar example still attached to the helmet, see no. 96 in S. Descamps-Lequime, Au royaume d'Alexandre le Grand: La Macédoine antique.