CIRCA 9TH-8TH CENTURY B.C.

Conical helmets were worn throughout the ancient Near East from the 9th to the 7th centuries B.C. Depictions of warriors so armed are found on Assyrian palace reliefs at Nineveh (see for example nos. 16 and 20-22 in J.E. Curtis and J.E. Reade, eds., Art and Empire, Treasures from Assyria in the British Museum) and on a Neo-Hittite orthostat from North Syria (no. 229 in O.W. Muscarella, Ladders to Heaven, Art Treasures from Lands of the Bible). Some conical helmets are ornamented with motifs in raised relief, with some further embellished with engraved scenes. One decorative scheme has raised arches curving in towards the front, each terminating in an animal head, frequently a ram, as here, or a lion. The arches are occasionally divided by a single straight rib descending from the crown, likewise terminating in an animal head. Just such a helmet is worn by a soldier on a rock relief on a tomb facade at Eski Dogubayazit in eastern Turkey (fig. 6 in R. Merhav, Urartu, A Metalworking Center in the First Millennium B.C.E.). For two bronze helmets ornamented in this fashion see nos. 9 and 14 in Merhav, op. cit. A more elaborate example was excavated at Karmir-Blur (Yerevan) in Armenia, which bears an inscription for the King Argisti I (no. 56 in C. Sintès and A. Grigorian, Au pied du mont Ararat, Splendeurs de l'Arménie antique). For a related helmet in the Ligabue collection with engraved figures flanking a sacred tree beneath a winged disk, similar to the example presented here, see p. 219 in F.M. Fales, Prima dell'Alfabeto, La storia della scrittura attraverso testi cuneiformi inediti.