This little ivory appliqué is a standout in the way the carver has absolutely reveled in the amount of patterns he could fit onto its small surface. The subject is, of course, a warrior whose rather haughty face (prissy pout, supercilious brow, aquiline nose, etc.) is surrounded by that glorious and quintessentially Mycenaean helmet. These
In terms of fantastical hybrid beasts, griffins are an intriguing breed. Half lion, half raptor, winged, there are so many body parts for ancient artists to elaborate upon, and any ideas about those blossom-like knobs ever-present on their foreheads? And this is a most remarkable 7th century example from Olympia – the very best century
This fragment (the interior of a mighty drinking cup attributed to Douris) has it all, but you have to peer at it closely… Front and center is a fierce warrior, striking in the way his face is drawn in three-quarters, framed by an ornate Chalcidian helmet (a thing of beauty: gleaming nose-piece, scaled culotte, checkered
Ever wonder why the nose-pieces of Greek helmets are sometimes snapped off or bent out of shape? Nose guards on Corinthian helmets don’t bend easily…they tend to be thicker than the rest of the helmet, to protect that delicate cartilaginous protrusion beneath, and when they are bent and missing it’s no accident and nothing to
With a silver sheen to that hauntingly immobile face and empty slitted apertures for eyes, this helmet instantly projects an uncanny, otherworldly effect. And presumably that was exactly the point. Roman helmets of a similar typology have been found all over Europe, and this especially powerful one in Holland was found by chance in 1915
A famous passage in Herodotus describes Greek warriors as ‘men of bronze’ rising from the sea. Evocative and certainly describing the hoplites of his time, sheathed in gleaming metal. Was there anything more personal than armor to a man of fighting age? Not only was it protective, but also obscenely expensive (that’s a lot of