Mask of Agamemnon

Mask of Agamemnon
The mask in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens
Material	Gold
Created	1550–1500 BC
Discovered	1876 at Mycenae, Greece by Heinrich Schliemann
Present location	National Archaeological Museum, Athens

The Mask of Agamemnon is a gold funerary mask discovered at the Bronze Age site of Mycenae in southern Greece. The mask, displayed in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, has been described by the historian Cathy Gere as the "Mona Lisa of prehistory".^[1]

German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, who discovered the artifact in 1876, believed that he had found the body of the Mycenaean king Agamemnon, leader of the Achaeans in the ancient Greek epic of the Trojan War, the Iliad. Modern archaeological research suggests that the mask dates to about the 16th century BC, pre-dating the period of the mythical Trojan War by 300–400 years.

YouTube Encyclopedic

1/5
Views:
135 118
440
510
11 026
936

Transcription

(folksy piano music) Beth: We're looking at a gold mask, that Schliemann referred to as, "Agamemnon." He actually, when this was on earth, said, "I have gazed into the face of Agamemnon." Now, Agamemnon was the great Greek hero of Homer's Iliad. Steven: We know now that this is not Agamemnon, but what a great publicity stunt. What we do have, is an enormous cache of gold objects, from the grave circles, where we found many bodies, surrounded by precious objects. And, in a number of cases, a figure would be wearing a gold mask. Beth: They were found fastened to the faces of the deceased people in these graves. Steven: And if you look closely, just next to the ear, you can see small holes, where we think there was some sort of string, that kept it fast to the face. Beth: Now there are two grave circles at Mycenae, that Schliemann found and excavated: Grave Circle A, and then also Grave Circle B. Now Schliemann was a businessman, and a kind of amateur archaeologist, so, some art historians have questions, especially of the one very fine mask that he referred to as, "Agamemnon." Steven: There's speculation that Schliemann may have over-restored it, and made it a little more attractive to nineteenth-century sensibilities. Beth: But, there's also many art historians and archaeologists who find this completely authentic, so, we just want to have a little bit of caution. Steven: What we do know, is that the vast majority of the cache that was found is authentic, and gives us our clearest understanding of this bronze-age culture. The technique that was used here, is a hammering of the gold, so that it becomes very thin, and very flat. And then, it was probably hammered against a wooden mold, in order to create the kind of sculptural form that we see. Beth: Schliemann worked on these two grave circles, which had many shaft graves in them, and in those shaft graves, buried with, what were obviously very important, powerful families, were enormous amounts of gold objects, not only these gold masks, but also necklaces, bracelets, cups, boxes, crowns, breast plates. Steven: There were also swords and daggers; the estimate is that there was some thirty pounds of gold that were found. Beth: Well, and it's important to think about where Mycenae is; Mycenae is a citadel: fortified, palace, hilltop. and it overlooks a vast valley. The citadel of Mycenae gives its name to this entire culture on the mainland, that we call Mycenaean, because this culture dominated the mainland of Greece, and traded far and wide across the Mediterranean. Steven: Right, Mycenae is one of the three primary cultures of Ancient Aegean culture, that is, these bronze-age cultures that come before the ancient Greece that we all know of, of the Parthenon, of the Greek Gods, etc. This is the period that was the stuff of legend to the Greeks that we know better. What we know of Mycenaean culture comes from these physical artifcats, from the citadel itself, from their various other outposts, and from these treasures. And that's because there was so little writing that we have discovered. There was a little bit of what we call, "Linear B" script, but we do not have the kinds of records that we have from ancient Egypt, or that we have from Mesopotamia. Beth: Some art historians and archaeologists have referred to this culture as being, "warlike," especially in opposition to Minoan culture, which is seen to be more peaceful. Steven: Well there are reasons for this: For one thing, Mycenaeans lived in heavily-fortified cities, whereas the Minoans had great palaces that were much less fortified. We find a lot of weapons, but whether or not that was offensive or defensive, we don't know. Beth: So it's very hard to make generalizations, I think, about the character of these people. Steven: But one can only imagine the kind of extraordinary delight, when Schliemann unearthed these graves. (folksy piano music)

Discovery

Schliemann found the gold funeral mask in 1876, in a shaft tomb designated Grave V, at the site Grave Circle A, Mycenae.^[2]^[3] A total of eight men were discovered in Grave Circle A,^[3]^[4] all of whom had weapons in their graves,^[5] but only five had masks; those were in Grave IV and Grave V.^[2]^[4]

The quantities of gold and carefully worked artifacts indicate honor, wealth and status. The Mask of Agamemnon was named by Schliemann after the legendary Greek king Agamemnon of Homer's Iliad. Schliemann took this as evidence the Trojan War was a real historical event.

The Mask of Agamemnon was created from a single thick gold sheet, heated and hammered against a wooden background with the details chased on later with a sharp tool.^[6] Following his discoveries at the site, Schliemann notified King George of Greece.^[7] He is supposed to have told the king in a telegraph, "I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon".^[8] Schliemann later named his son after the legendary king. Close to the end of his life, the archaeologist accepted doubts as to the mask's true owner and is quoted as saying, "So this is not Agamemnon ... these are not his ornaments? All right, let's call him Schulze."^[9]

Authenticity

In the latter half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, the authenticity of the mask has been formally questioned, primarily by William Calder III and David Traill.^[10] Archaeology magazine has run a series of articles presenting both sides of the debate. By the time of the excavation of the Shaft Graves, the Greek Archaeological Society had taken a hand in supervising Schliemann's work (after the issues at Troy), sending Panagiotis Stamatakis as ephor, or director, of the excavation, who kept a close eye on Schliemann.

Proponents of the fraud argument center their case on Schliemann's reputation for salting digs with artefacts from elsewhere. The resourceful Schliemann, they assert, could have had the mask manufactured on the general model of the other Mycenaean masks and found an opportunity to place it in the excavation.

The defending advocate(s) point out that the excavation was closed on November 26–27 for Sunday holiday and rain. It was not allowed to reopen until Stamatakis had provided the work with credible witnesses. The three other masks were not discovered until the 28th. The Mask of Agamemnon was found on the 30th.

A second critique is based on style. The Mask of Agamemnon differs from three of the other masks in a number of ways: it is three-dimensional rather than flat, one of the facial hairs is cut out, rather than engraved, the ears are cut out, the eyes are depicted as both open and shut, with open eyelids, but a line of closed eyelids across the center, the face alone of all the depictions of faces in Mycenaean art has a full pointed beard with handlebar moustache, the mouth is well-defined (compared to the flat masks), the brows are formed to two arches rather than one.

The defense presented prior arguments that the shape of the lip, the triangular beard and the detail of the beard are nearly the same as the mane and locks of the gold lion-head rhyton from Shaft Grave IV. Schliemann's duplicity, they claim, has been greatly exaggerated, and they also claim that the attackers were conducting a vendetta.

Modern archaeological research suggests that the mask is genuine but pre-dates the period of the Trojan War by 300–400 years.^[11]^[12] Others date the contents of the find even earlier, to approximately 2500 BC.^[13]

Notes

^ Gere 2011, pp. 1–2.
^ ^a ^b "Behind the Mask of Agamemnon"by Spencer P.M. Harrington in Archaeology, Vol. 52, No. 4, July/August 1999. The online archive, retrieved 29 May 2013.
^ ^a ^b Gates, Charles (2003). Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Routledge. p. 133. ISBN 978-0-415-12182-8.
^ ^a ^b Komita, Nobuo (1982). "The Grave Circles at Mycenae and the Early Indo-Europeans". Research Reports of Ikutoku Technical University (A-7): 59–61.
^ Neer, Richard T. (2012). Greek Art and Archaeology: A New History, c. 2500 – c. 150 BCE. Thames & Hudson. p. 48. ISBN 978-0-500-28877-1.
^ Biers, William R. (1987). The Archaeology of Greece: An Introduction. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-9406-0. OCLC 15317806.
^ Harrington, Spencer P.M.; Calder, William M.; Traill, David A.; Demarkopoulou, Katie; Lapatin, Kenneth D.S. (1999). "Behind the Mask of Agamemnon". Archaeology. 52 (4): 51–59. JSTOR 41779424.
^ Dickinson, O. T. P. K. (2005). "The "Face of Agamemnon"". Hesperia. 74: 299–308.
^ Salomon, Marilyn J. (1974). Great Cities of the World 3: Next Stop... Athens. The Symphonette Press. p. 14.
^ Gere 2011, p. 176.
^ "Behind the Mask of Agamemnon" by Spencer P.M. Harrington in Archaeology, Vol. 52, No. 4, July/August 1999. The online archive, retrieved 25 July 2018. Archived here.
^ Salomon, Marilyn J. (1974). Great Cities of the World 3: Next Stop... Athens. The Symphonette Press. p. 12.
^ Salomon, Marilyn J. (1974). Great Cities of the World 3: Next Stop... Athens. The Symphonette Press. p. 101.

References

Gere, Cathy (2011). The Tomb of Agamemnon. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-06824-7.
Behind the mask of Agamemnon Archived 2011-04-10 at the Wayback Machine, July/August 1999
Is the Mask a Hoax? Archived 2011-03-24 at the Wayback Machine op. cit.
Insistent Questions Archived 2011-03-11 at the Wayback Machine op. cit.
The Case for Authenticity Archived 2011-03-11 at the Wayback Machine op. cit.
Not A Forgery. How about a Pastiche? Archived 2012-08-12 at the Wayback Machine op. cit.
Epilogue Archived 2012-08-08 at the Wayback Machine op. cit.

External links

Media related to Agamemnon Mask at Wikimedia Commons
Analysis by Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris in Smarthistory

v t e Major exhibits at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens
Neolithic	Karditsa Thinker
Cycladic	Frying pan 1 Frying pan 2 Spool-shaped pyxis
Minoan	Akrotiri Boxer Fresco Wall Paintings of Thera
Mycenaean	Grave stelai of Mycenae Mask of Agamemnon Octopus amphora Nestor's Cup Theseus Ring Warrior Vase
Archaic	Apollo Omphalos Artemision Bronze Daidala Dedication of Nikandre Dipylon Amphora Dipylon inscription Grave stele 7901 Horses Amphora Kroisos Kouros Lemnos stele Merenda Kouros Phrasikleia Kore Pitsa panels Rider Amphora Sounion Kouros Stele of Aristion
Classical	Antikythera Ephebe Funerary naiskos of Aristonautes Funerary Stela of Demokleides Grave Stele of Hegeso Great Eleusinian Relief Mantineia Base Marathon Boy Myrtis Nike of Epidaurus Ninnion Tablet Xenokrateia Relief
Hellenistic	Antikythera mechanism Aristonoe Group of Aphrodite, Pan and Eros Heracles of Antikythera Jockey of Artemision Lycosoura Artemis Lycosoura Demeter Mithridates relief Nike of Megara Poseidon of Melos Themis of Rhamnous
Roman	Aphrodite of Syracuse Armed Aphrodite Atalante Hermes Bust of Antinous Diadumenos Hermes Criophorus Hermes of Aegium Lenormant Athena Varvakeion Athena

This page was last edited on 2 March 2024, at 19:10

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia